Do what you love, it’s your gift to universe
A musician friend of mine, Cornelius, from London (well he’s Irish actually) has come up with the slogan “Do what you love, it’s your gift to the universe“. He’s a musician/songwriter who I definitely recommend you check out, and he plays a lot of the alternative UK music festivals.
Anyway, more than I want to promote Cornelius (which I’m always happy to do - check out his blog, music site and t-shirt store), I want to promote the importance of doing what you love, because I think Cornelius is so right in what he says.
Doing what you love is just so important if you want to live a happy and fulfilling life (and I’m assuming here that doing what you love won’t harm another human being in anyway).
Not only is it important for your own wellbeing, it really is important for the whole world and even the universe. Imagine a world in which every single person was doing what they truly loved. Would there still be wars, hate, disharmony, depression, unhappiness? I don’t think so.
Consider these not so good statistics:
Major depression is the No.1 psychological disorder in the western world. (source)
In the UK, 1 in 4 people will experience some kind of mental health problem in the course of a year. (source)
In 2006/7 530,000 people in the UK suffered from work-related stress, depression or anxiety (source)
Why is that? Why are so many people unhappy?
Well, on the surface, people get depressed or unhappy for a countless number of different reasons. But I think you could probably distill almost all those reasons to one single reason - which is that they’re not doing what they love.
So many people have jobs they hate, and even relationships they hate, but they feel hopelessly trapped in them. People growing up in the western world are conditioned from a young age to believe that they need to get good qualifications in order to get a good career, so they can live a nice comfortable life, probably get married, have the obligatory 2.4 kids, nice house (with a not so nice mortgage), nice car, and whatever else it takes to keep up with the Jones’ next door. Then if you’re lucky you’ll retire at 65 with a nice pension, and you can relax and take it easy….until you die! Woohoo! What a great fucking life that is! (if you’ll pardon my french!). No wonder everyone’s so bloody depressed!
I interupt this post with a short commercial break, put together by the makers of South Park featuring the voice of the late great Alan Watts.
The fact is most jobs and ‘good careers’ are boring as hell. They don’t fulfil you in any meaningful way, they don’t give you any meaningful recognition for the amazing being that you truly are, and they sure as shit don’t make you happy.
Here’s the problem. Most people are just too afraid to take risks, they’re too afraid of what other people think, and they’re too afraid of failure.
If you’re not already doing what you love (and my hat off to you if you are!) then I’m absolutely sure that you have a secret dream of what you’d much rather be doing other than your current boring, crappy job! But, you keep that dream a secret don’t you? And for whatever reason you probably believe it will always remain a dream, and nothing more!
Well here’s a friendly rocket up your ass! Please get over yourself, get over your fears, and most of all get over what you think everyone else might think about dreams. You can’t change your family, but if your friends won’t support you then they’re not authentic friends so get rid of them, and find friends you know will encourage and support you.
What’s the point of living an unhappy and unfulfilled life? What’s the point of having dreams if you can’t realise them (or at least try to realise them). There is no point.
Please wake up! Know that you really can create the life you want. Know that your dreams can come true. Know that you have nothing worthwhile to lose, and everything to gain by chasing your dreams and doing what you love.
And also know that what you’ve been conditioned to believe by western culture (ie that you need to make lots of money, and have a good career, to be happy and fulfilled) is the biggest load of bullshit that’s ever been sold.
I’ll leave you with the story of the Mexican Fisherman….
The Mexican Fisherman
A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.
“Not very long,” answered the Mexican.
“But then, why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more?” asked the American.
The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.
The American asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”
“I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs…I have a full life.”
The American interrupted, “I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you!
“You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat. With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers.
“Instead of selling your fish to a middleman, you can negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even New York City! From there you can direct your huge enterprise.”
“How long would that take?” asked the Mexican.
“Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years,” replied the American.
“And after that?”
“Afterwards? That’s when it gets really interesting,” answered the American, laughing. “When your business gets really big, you can start selling stocks and make millions!”
“Millions? Really? And after that?”
“After that you’ll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta, and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends!”
Hi Andy,
Thats a well written piece. No words wasted.
I’d like to add a little, by way of my personal interpretation of the phrase.
Intrinsic to nature is the provision of the abundance and the space to grow into whatever being one is, be it an amoeba, a whale, a tree, a beetle or even a rain-forest. We are of nature, and thus the abundance and space applies to us, as much a sit applies to any living creature.
I see that provision as love, unconditional and complete. I see that all creatures do what they do, and none attempt to ever be anything other than what they are. I see that as love too. I am sure elephants love being elephants and never consider being other than elephants.
We westerners in general do not speak amoeba, whale, tree, elephant or rainforest and so we can only geuss at the inner lives of those creatures. That they ‘feel’ and ’sense’ and ‘communicate’ is known. To my mind one has to assume they are equally yet differently intelligent, cognitive and may well have ‘emotional’ and inner lives. It’s probably a fair bet to assume so. They certainly respond to trauma as we do. Animals in Zoos, especially those taken from the wild, go mad.
I also see that they all do what they do really well, and all improve the habitat by their actions. That is their gift to universe. And of course their poo is also a gift. Bird poo is a seed disperser and nutrient. Many animals metabolise the waste of others, and thus more life emerges. All of this is deeply precise. Nature is precision.
Now if humankind were to emulate nature, it would have to be intrinsic to us. Indeed many indigneous peoples demonstrate these very qualities. Intrinsic values lived.
Doing “what you love” in this context is about being who one truelly is and I knew as a child that I loved music, I loved sharing ideas and info, I loved learning (not being taught was not so much fun, as it limited what I could learn, and I was dimly aware of this..). My srory has been one of reclaiming my identity as the consciousness that was born into this life.
I loved forests and nature and I loved being alive…(though my experience growing up in a highly conditioned environment of elite boarding schools did obscure that, and did instill many fears in me, fears I was not born with, fears that became unconscious, which is a survival strategy of children who grow up in such arid environments - we have to suppress the pain to survive.)
These ‘loves’ were intrinsic, they remain so… and I sense that all of us have intrinsic loves too, loves that enable us to master the many skills required to live, to improve the habitat as well as those that give us such great satisfaction….. and I know for sure that ‘education’ is designed to replace those intrinsic values with another set of values deemed fit by ’society’ - or societys architects - and that imposition is part of the reason for so much unhappiness…
So doing what you love is about honestly appraising ones intrinsic values and living them fully. These are the stuff of life, not merely of dreams, and of course in society where these are masked, they take on a dream-like quality.
The society sells the idea of loving what you do, which is more about survival, getting approval, fitting in and making up for the loss of ones intrinsic sense of self. An addiction so to speak. A distraction.
Hope this explanation makes sense to you, and that you have blessing on your journeys through Peru and eslewhere.
Thanks for that Andy… it is all sooo very true… am loving this fisherman story by the way!! will pass it on!!… take care and have fun on your journey!!
Kiki.xx
Nice blog and great writing Metters. May I add my two-penneth (it’s all I got right now, having given up my job):
http://www.soulandsoil.com//UserConsole/ViewPost.aspx?Title=DO_give_up_your_day_job&ArticleID=1986
‘Job consciousness’ is the most insidios pandemic facing the human spirit right now, where society and economy have become horrifically interchangeable!