We all have to work, earn money to pay for things we need, want and sometimes just crave. Sadly work isn’t always fun, and more often than not we get stuck with doing things we really don’t want to. As I was filing away things yesterday, a task I hate but I hate it even more when it’s not done, my mind wandered off back to a time when the question:”what do you want to be” seemed so harmless and everything was possible.
I know it is unusual for a child to know what they want to DO but I always have, however what I want to BE is an entirely different matter. As I was pondering the difference between being and doing I realised that the question asked is all wrong. By asking what we want to BE makes us define who we are by what we do and not by what we feel, think and love. By that measure most of us would be administrators, filer-awayers or listeners-to-long-winded-recordings/waiting-music and emailers. After all most of us spend more time doing anything but what we want to, even in creative jobs you spend lots of time filling in forms, doing paperwork and applying for the next project.
With that said as you grow up, you realise that you have to take the bad with the good and learn to accept that you may only be doing the “fun” bit half of the time if you are lucky. But that still shouldn’t doesn’t mean that that is who we are, just what we do.
If we define who we are by what we do all day long it means our work becomes our life and everything that happens, good and bad, becomes personal. In the worst case scenario it means if we lose our job, we lose our identity and it does make us a little bit one dimensional and boring. After-all do others really want to talk about what we do all day long? Probably not.
A lot of us struggle with freeing ourselves from our daily work, our minds lug the heavy thoughts of how things should be, could be or aren’t done at work, home with us and occupy our thoughts even when we ought to be relaxing and unwinding. Interestingly enough most even quote the famous seven dwarfs song as Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho it’s off to work we go when in actual fact it really is: home from work we go
The only way to avoid being what we do is to be and do other things. Hobbies can help, meeting lots of other people, travel and widening our horizons will make us a more rounded, educated us and then of course there is our inner being.
By seeking happiness not wealth, by enjoying laughter not things, by loving, hugging and creating memories to last a lifetime we become the US we want to BE. By nurturing what makes us unique and one of a kind helps us find out who we are and helps us be just that. So maybe the chorus from that famous Disney song: “Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho it’s home from work we go“ should remind us that: yes working is important but going home is the song and dance that life is really about.
jensinewall 