Friday, January 9, 2009

Sometimes you know right away how a day is going to go. Say for instance that your car doors freeze open. After ten minutes of unsuccessful thuds and a latch that refuses to catch, you realize that not only are you late, you are going to have a long walk from your distant parking space.

Or maybe you walk in the door to be greeted by the following sentences, back to back, from your boss:
"I can't believe I have to come in to work and listen to f*ing Ricky Martin." Ricky Martin sings in disbelief about La Vida Loca from the speaker above."I dance naked to Bob Seger." You don't even have to question that. You definitely don't want to think about it. You just know that maybe tomorrow will be better.

You have to laugh at life. You can analyze it, and complain about, and try to figure it out, but in the end it's still going to be moving forward. I've had in depth conversations with a lot of people this week, only to realize that none of us know what we are doing. We are trying really hard to figure it out, but we are just making guesses and empty plans for the most part. In the meantime, we work, shop, run on treadmills three times a week, quote t.v. shows, and eat out in cool restaurants to give this time some definition.

Every yoga teacher I have ever known has always loved their job. They sacrifice things like convenience and money because they love it so much. I have a friend who works at a nursery. She lifts trees and works in the rain, and she loves it. Another friend worked several part time jobs so that she could dance. Working in a coffee shop was probably my favorite job thus far. On the other side, I have plenty of friends who make good money and hate the 8-12 hours they spend working in their office every day. Oh wait, that's what I am doing. But why? Because money is so great? Sure it offers tons of benefits, no question. At the end of the day, though, it's just something to get rid of. Those of us in the office jobs define ourselves by how we spend our money more than we define ourselves by our passions, it seems. Maybe we have lost our passions while we have been saving up for our glorious futures.

I've been really challenged by this lately.  Maybe it will mean everything, maybe it will mean nothing. Even if it isn't always a dream, life is moving forward and it's completely absurd and funny most of the time.

Check it: Song of the week.(Thanks, Tracey!) Playlist coming soon...
Also, check out these quotes from My Dinner with Andre - one of the strangest and best movies I've seen.

4 comments:

Dan Smitley said...

excellent post! the great debate of "are you working to live or are you living to work". it really comes down to your priorities.

i think for a lot of people their priorities are having a good face for their families and friends, and so they suffer through crap and play with their passions on the side. for others their happiness alone is important and they throw off the cultural norms and live their passions through their jobs.

obviously those are overstatments but i think it does come down to priorities. mine are for my family so i put up with a job i dont love, on a career path i dont want to go down, just so that my family is taken care of.

seriously we need to talk soon via a phone call. i miss hearing from ya

believe_in_magic said...

Woohoo! I'm all caught up on La Vida Amanda!! Or the web-version, anyway. Glad to know you moved over here and didn't just abandon blogging altogether. A little bit of the spark would go out of life if that was the case. You always make me want to be creative, to write brilliant things, to drag up the Martha that gets stuffed away in the depths of existence and toss her out in the world with full force.

Stephanie Lynn said...

I sometimes wonder if I should quit my job and paint all day. Someday...

Anonymous said...

A book that is helping me figure it out: "What color is your Parachute"

 
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