12.8.18 - "Work Can Be A Total Slog"

Dear Sweet Babe,

Today I want to talk about work.

You may hear people bemoaning work. After all, a lot of people are doing work that makes them immensely unhappy, so it would make sense to let off steam through expressing discontent, taking vacations, and maybe developing a drinking problem or negative emotional patterns over a desire to escape from a set of tasks that you loathe…well, maybe that doesn’t make so much sense after all. Yet, still, so many people fall into the trap of doing work that they don’t love.

So, how does one avoid the fate of despising your work and letting it drive you to destruction?

It’s a surprisingly simple, yet wholly contentious answer, sweet babe: love what you do.
If you love what you do, you will find yourself steering yourself farther and farther away from a need to escape what you do. If you love what you do, you will find yourself finding more fulfillment in your daily life and less internal angst in a general sense of purposelessness. If you love what you do, you will tap into a universal flow that will whisk you away to success and the easiest happiness you have ever found.

But, please don’t misunderstand me. If you love what you do, you will still have to work. You will still be frustrated. You will still have exhaustion. You will still have moments where the components you need to click together in order to get a project done will just simply not want to find their place. You will still have times when you will encounter others who’s personal goals and dreams will bash straight up against yours, and the confusion and strife that these people bring will be immense. You will still be hardship. That, unfortunately, is simply unavoidable.
But, if you put in the work, if you find what brings you joy and then work towards it, your life will find purpose. It does not need to be a lasting purpose or an unchanging purpose (chances are it will change more times than you know what to do with it), but it will be a purpose that will drive you; it will be a purpose that will help define you; it will be a purpose that will carry you through the darkness.

Work can be a total slog. Work can take all of your energy and it can seem, some times, to give you so little in return. But, if you find what you love, you will work in happiness every day of your life.

xxx