Friday, August 06, 2004
I accidently have a new job. I did not intend to have a job. In the past year plus some, I've been busy enough with freelance writing and finishing a second master's degree. One day, the call comes to do some editing for the summer and the next thing I know, I am working 20 hours a week. They pay me to read other people's soon to be books and make them better. That's an ideal job for me. This blog is not going to proove to anyone that I write well and know a think or two about writing. But the fact is I do.
I have other talents and skills--I play the piano and guitar, draw, paint, cook, garden--but the only thing I do as well as I write is swim. Not a big call for a career in swimming.
Not that I want a career. They are overrated. Takes aways from the purpose of living. Career means being invested in something, enough to put all else aside, to become successful, famous, rich, the best. I am invested in the career of living well.
Oh, bother, you say, what a cop out. OK maybe. So, what? If you don't agree, and you want a career, go have one. But when life is over, what are you gonna wish you excelled at? Your career or living life well.
Living life well may mean different things to all of us. That's the point, isn't it? We do all have different lives. These lives of ours cross paths now and then. We click. We clash. We love. We fail to love. But in all of this we live well when we invest our energy in recognizing that life is good. We accept life today, this minute, for it is--the present. None of that cliche on God's gift being called the present. Breathing is enough. Each breath. Another. Doesn't have to happen. But it does.
At any given moment, another person is living so close they begin to push into our present. The pressure can be damaging. Woops. Slide right out of the present.
I have other talents and skills--I play the piano and guitar, draw, paint, cook, garden--but the only thing I do as well as I write is swim. Not a big call for a career in swimming.
Not that I want a career. They are overrated. Takes aways from the purpose of living. Career means being invested in something, enough to put all else aside, to become successful, famous, rich, the best. I am invested in the career of living well.
Oh, bother, you say, what a cop out. OK maybe. So, what? If you don't agree, and you want a career, go have one. But when life is over, what are you gonna wish you excelled at? Your career or living life well.
Living life well may mean different things to all of us. That's the point, isn't it? We do all have different lives. These lives of ours cross paths now and then. We click. We clash. We love. We fail to love. But in all of this we live well when we invest our energy in recognizing that life is good. We accept life today, this minute, for it is--the present. None of that cliche on God's gift being called the present. Breathing is enough. Each breath. Another. Doesn't have to happen. But it does.
At any given moment, another person is living so close they begin to push into our present. The pressure can be damaging. Woops. Slide right out of the present.
