Fear is always a sign of strain, arising whenever what you want conflicts with what you do. ~ ACIM T2.VI.5:1
When you are asked to do what you don’t like, you will feel drained, tired and listless, aren’t you? Your mother asks you to clean up your room, you are irritated. You grumble, you make a fuss and you just push everything into an over-loaded drawer. Slam it shut and whine. You hated it.
You are stuck in your job as a Secretary when your heart screams for a piano. Your mum wants you to play the violin, but all you want to play is football. You are a CEO of a firm but all you want is to take a time off to participate in a cooking contest. You drag your feet to work because you have a family of five to feed, you said.
What are you afraid of? What is the fear that holds you back from living the life you want?
Have you met with people who are constantly happy? They come to work bright and sunny everyday. They smile a lot. Many times you wondered why are they so happy, why are they smiling? Joy is always infectious. You have that piece of joy in you too, that’s why you remember how joy feels like. When you come across someone who shows you what joy looks like, you want that joy too. When you decide to show up in life doing what you love and loving what you do, you will experience lightness.
It is never about what you do, it is always about what you love of what you do. That passion drives you to wake up every morning, jump off your bed and start the day knowing that it is another day of fun and happiness at work.
I met an Investor who is very passionate about his work and his investments. In the seminar, he said that he wakes up very early in the morning, there are many TV monitors around his house, where he will check the market movements. He takes interest in all his investment. He checks out the properties that the companies claimed they invested, rather than depending on hearsay. He visits the companies to learn about their productions. He even takes time to meet up with the company’s top management people. He is not interested in the dividends the companies pay out, because he said he would rather let the company keep the dividends and use the money for future growth. What is that fraction of a dividend compared to the success of the companies? He advised investors to look towards helping companies to be successful rather than thinking of reaping small gains.
With such interest in his investments and the companies, he said he is always charged up even to meet with the company’s top management to check on their progress. He wants to work with the company to experience their growth and prosper together with them. That’s why he is happy all the time. This is what he loves to see happen, the success of the companies he invested in.
When he is done with this research in the morning, he tends to his garden.
Are you happy working with the company so that the company will be successful? Or are you going to work, hoping just to get paid? And you would not care if the company is growing or not as long as you get to stay in your job? That’s where you get the strain, because all you cared for is your insecurity. No money, you can’t pay your bills, no food on the table, you can’t show people you’ve made it.
When life become strenuous, you are in fear, you get angry easily, you get tired all the time, you are not living. You have a deep conflict with what you want and what you are doing.
How would you bring joy to work?
How would you do differently that will bring joy in your daily work?
What would you do to create a space for your creativity (art, music, cooking, reading etc) in your workplace?
