We didn’t come to earth to work.
And yet, that seems to be the goal drummed into our heads from birth. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” They start asking us that question way early and talking about college and trade schools and careers. What do you want to be?
Here’s a great story purported to be from John Lennon:
“When I was 5 years old my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”
Important note: there’s absolutely no evidence John Lennon ever said this. But it doesn’t detract from the statement’s profundity.
Our goal in life should be to be happy. If we follow our heart of hearts toward what feels like happiness to us, we’ll be successful in whatever we do.
We each come into this life with gifts, and as we grow and are exposed to more choices, those gifts grow and adapt. When we figure out how we can share our gift with others, we often say we’ve found our calling. And when we are doing what we love, and leading a happy, joyful life, the money energy will follow.
So the goal isn’t to choose a career we think will pay off well. The goal is to do what makes us happy and trust that our happiness will align us with whatever abundance we seek.
Now, some might not believe we don’t have to “work” to make money. Many probably have the belief, shared by most of our society, that long hours of hard work and money go hand in hand, and that you can’t have one without the other. And many probably also believe that you can only earn so much given the time you are able to put in. These ones have placed an artificial cap on their potential income by believing X hours equals X dollars.
But we can find evidence to the contrary if we look for it. There are plenty of people who play for a living: piano or basketball or roles in films or on stage. There are people who create art for a living: storytellers, sculptors, painters. There are people who win lotteries and inherit fortunes. There are people who make millions and millions of dollars but work only a couple of hours a day.
Everywhere we look, we can find evidence that not everyone has to slave away at a job they hate to make a mediocre living. That’s a start toward changing our financially limiting beliefs. But we must go farther than this. We must find a way to believe that we don’t have to slave away at a job we hate, either.
Most of us think we’re different from everyone else. But by and large, we’re all the same.
Some who were raised very poor, as I was, fall into the trap of believing that’s all life has in store for them. Their biggest dream might be to have a little more than their parents did. For me, that meant indoor plumbing and a car that would run more often than not. Fortunately, I had some bad things happen in my childhood that made me rebel against everything my family stood for, and perpetual poverty was one of those things. I was lucky. I was launched out of there like a rocket at the tender age of 15, and I am grateful for the events that lit my fuse. They were not fun to experience. But I don’t think I’d be where I am if I’d had a happy, idyllic childhood.
Don’t interpret that to mean no one with a happy childhood can be successful. That’s not what I’m saying at all. What I’m saying is that we all have experiences that will push us where we need to go. Our Higher Self knows our best, fastest path. And everything in our lives has a hand in helping us find it. I was a kid who would never have thought living in a nice home, making good money doing something I love to do, was a possibility for me. But I was pushed out into the world early, and exposed to examples of people doing just that. People like me.
I think it’s important to expose our kids to bigger possibilities than those they see at home and in their neighborhoods. We need to show them what’s out there, and emphasize to them that anyone can have it. That no human being is more worthy than they are, and that the same potential is out there for all of us. We need to encourage them to dream as big as their imaginations can reach, while expanding their minds so they can dream even bigger.
And not just kids, either. It’s never too late to begin launching those big dreams.
Finding Your Gift
Sometimes people think they don’t have a gift, or that they don’t know what their gift is. So a little self-exploration is called for here. Why not take a little self-exploration quiz to find your true calling?
Use your journal for this exercise.
Try to answer all or most and see if something becomes clearer. If it doesn’t, try writing all your answers together in a word cloud of sorts, and see if a pattern emerges. If you can find a way to make a living doing something you would do for free (and I swear to you, every single one of us can), then life takes a huge leap into bliss.
What if I Have a Job, Hate it, But Need the Money?
Should I quit?
Well, let’s think about this carefully. We have to remember that our current situation is a mirror, showing us the state of our vibration, or at least a very recent state of it. Our present life shows us which station we’ve been tuned into most often.
If I am in a job I hate, then I’m attuned to a job I hate. I’m thinking about how much I hate it. I’m complaining about it. I’m wishing I could quit. I’m dreading going in to work each day.
If I quit today, while I’m tuned in this way, then whatever new job I find will also be a job I hate, because that’s the only thing that can come to me until and unless I change my vibration. I need to change the channel first, and then change jobs second.
So how do I do that? I start by looking for something about my current job that I don’t hate. I begin heading out to work every morning expecting at least one good thing to happen there. I find something to like, anything to like about this current job. Maybe my office has one of the nicest restrooms I’ve ever been in. Maybe there’s one co-worker I really enjoy running into every day. Maybe work has a faster internet connection than home and I get a chance to use it for fun when no one’s looking. Maybe I just start paying attention to the good my paycheck brings into my life, the bills it pays. Maybe I work on feeling grateful to have a job that pays my bills at all. Maybe I go look at what it would cost me to buy my own health insurance, which will truly give me something to love about my job if health insurance is provided.
Even better, maybe I start to get into what this company is doing. Maybe it’s something really worthwhile. Maybe I decide to become the best file clerk or phone answerer or assembly line worker that anyone in this building has ever seen, and take pride in that and feel good about it.
As I find peace with where I am, things will begin to shift. My job will become less hateful. I will become happier and more content there. I might get a promotion. I might get a raise. The people and things that irritate me will fade out of my experience because I’ve stopped focusing on being irritated. Things will change all around me as I make my own subtle changes within myself. I might get so satisfied with my job that I start to wonder if I really need a different job after all. And that’s the time to start looking. I might not even have to look. It’s likely that, under these new conditions, offers will come pouring in and I’ll be able to take my pick.
Get happy where you are. Then make changes. Never make a change from a place of discontent.
It’s opposite of what most of us do. We stay where we are when we’re happy, make changes when we’re not. But the best practice is to get happy first, then take action.
Indulge Your Muse, Whoever She Is
Those things you love doing—do them. Do them in your spare time. Do them with passion. Make them a priority even if they don’t pay (yet). They’re more valuable than money. They are expressions of your soul. There’s a very good reason why you’re compelled to write, or to paint, or to decorate houses or landscape gardens, or take pictures. There’s a part of our Higher Selves, the part I call The Muse, who whispers inspiration to us all. She’s the most creative part, and she manifests differently in each of us. Those desires, those feelings of joy we have when we indulge her, those are the biggest clues we have to finding our calling.
Our calling is the thing that brings us the most joy!