Hello again.
“Enjoy what you’re doing and everything else will fall into place.”
Someone said that to me recently and it’s actually quite obvious to many of us. If you are enjoying what you do then other aspects of your life tend to fall into place.
Now enjoying what you do can have many different meanings. For example, many of us are searching for a “high” in life but that high doesn’t last for long and so we keep searching and trying the same high over and over again.
Now don’t get me wrong here. I am no angel and I’m certainly not being judgemental. (Do you know that there are one or two people out there who respected me and the work that I did for their organisations but who’s perspective of me has changed simply because they read in my book that I was once a stripper? The same people still encourage their workforce to work in a nonjudgmental manner of course!😭) Anyway, I have never used drugs, I always preferred alcohol and am honest enough to admit that I have, what the professionals call, self- medicated. It’s well under control today but nobody will deprive me of my pint. I also smoked for much of my life. I admit to not really enjoying it but that first cigarette in the morning was awesome.
So these were my highs and there are many more as we humans can get our fix from almost anything such as sex, sport or even gossiping. No, those moments aren’t about long term contentment and are only brief. They also fail to give us what we are looking for as every high is followed by some kind of low. Hence the need for repeating the habits.
So what’s not to enjoy? I spent most of my life working at my trade in engineering. Plenty ups and downs which were usually economy driven but that’s life for most of the workforce. Now here’s the big thing. I earned a good living even though I had actually gone to university for several years to study for a degree in engineering. When I got back to my trade I kept quiet about the degree as, believe it or not, it annoyed many of my colleagues when it came out. Not through me by the way. The university contacted my employer. Some things are best kept quiet. (So I put the qualification into the drawer beside my old g-string 😉.)
Plenty money then but still no contentment. It took me a long time to find contentment in my life but it was worth it. I still don’t have a lot of money but I get by and can’t complain. I began by finding work that I enjoyed. Yes, enjoyed!! I’d gone through life thinking that such work didn’t exist, not for me anyway. I’m glad that I retired having experienced real feelings of job satisfaction without clock watching. Incidentally I took a big drop in salary by changing career and have never regretted that decision.
Okay, there’s a lot more to what I’m on about than simply what I’ve explained as it takes hard work along with the courage to leave that comfort zone of ours. Today I get bored if I find myself getting “comfortable” and can sense when I would benefit from doing something else. As I write this I’m already working on what’s next which involves something that I backed away from in the past. I did it but didn’t particularly enjoy it so here we go again.
So, “ Enjoy what you’re doing and everything else will fall into place.” Who actually said that to me? I heard it a week ago and it was my mum who said it to me. Nice, eh?
Even nicer when my mum has been dead for many years. That’s okay though, I speak with many “mums” who are no longer on this Earth. You might not see them but they’re closer than you think.
Take care.
My book, What’s The Worst That Can Happen? is being republished however if you want a paperback copy now I have some copies available here; https://james-mcdonald-author.sumupstore.com/. UK only due to postage costs. The ebook is available here; https://books.apple.com/gb/book/whats-the-worst-that-can-happen/id6443214058
What’s The Worst That Can Happen?