2003-02-05 - 1:52 p.m.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Worth something. I aspire to tangible value.
This realization came about during a conversation with my best friend. I've done something I oughtn't and now I am faced with the possibility of being unemployed. Or at least very unhappily employed.
I mean, really, how long can you operate under the threat of "Warning"? Either they are blowing smoke or they are actually going to fire you. Either way, there is not much you can do. If it is in you to improve in the ways they are asking you to then you do ... and if it isn't, you don't. My memories of movies where people break their backs to keep their jobs were hammering at my head while I made that blase statment. But those are movies, those actors are getting paid to pretend to work. So shut up you brain, you!
I don't know that I agree with the work ethic "be good at your job because it's worth being good at". A paycheck does not equal worth. Just like age doesn't automatically equal respectability. I only respect the elders that behave respectably and I feel it's ok to only be good at the jobs I find valuable. I don't feel the need to go and excel as a housecleaner, even though I was one for 3 days. And, while I do have admin skills, I think that I will only be really good at this job when I care about it. When I find that it is worth devoting my time and myself to it. The fact that they pay me doesn't automatically make that true.
All that being said, I want to be worth something. I want to be able to point to something as the fruit of my labor. "See! I spent 8 hours of my day working on that thing and, look, there it is. Improving the world as we speak." They don't have to be big things (I quite enjoy crocheting). Nor do they have to be earth shattering things (I would work on a stage crew and paint sets). But at the end of the day I need to be proud of myself and of my product. I would like to get to a place where I don't make excuses for what I do, or instantly start talking about how much I hate it. I would like to go on for hours about what I learned, what I accomplished ... and not sound pompous in my own ears.
So how do I cram all of that into a job description?
Take care,
M
And how could I forget?
Then a ploughman said, "Speak to us of Work."
And he answered, saying:
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret.
But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.
You have been told also life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.
Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, "he who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is a nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet."
But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.
And if you grudge the crushin of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran
