Start your own fire…

Recently, I had another “Kairos moment.”  I was posed a very good question by a very perceptive thinker.  He told me that he was “stuck.”  He’s authoring his OPUS document and he doesn’t believe what he’s written.  He told me that he LOVES the people, the process, the place, and so many other aspects of his work.  He really does.  And, he told me why he’s certain that he’s stuck.  I asked him to tell me more.  He did.

He told me that he doesn’t LOVE the product of his work.  He just doesn’t.  He asked me if you could be in your OPUS and not LOVE the product.  My answer was clear, concise, and direct.

No.

One’s opus is one’s labor of LOVE.  You can’t get around this truth.  You can, however, still be very successful doing something you don’t love.  You can choose, like most humans, to find an occupation that will simply pay you well and work your way up the ladder.  A few will make it to the top this way.  When they arrive there they will discover that it still isn’t their LOVE.  It provides them, oftentimes, with great income and it takes a huge toll.  Funny, we tend to miss this “and.”

These people are what I like to call, “highly paid laborers.”  The business world is full of them.  Their time at the top is always fleeting and less than fulfilling.

His look said it all.  It made sense, what I was saying, it just kinda stung hearing it.

What to do, he sheepishly replied.

Here’s the beauty.  Y-O-U have the redemptive power of choice.  Y-O-U can choose to continue doing what you presently don’t love.  Y-O-U can work to rekindle your LOVE for the work.  Y-O-U can choose to re-awaken your passions in other areas and see if this newfound energy seeps into your work.  Y-O-U can choose to medicate the chronic pain that comes when you make more money than you create meaning or when you don’t make enough money to create more diversions.

You choose.  Your choices have consequences.

The perceptive thinker, I mentioned earlier, is getting busy rekindling his “love to’s.”  He is choosing to start his own fire.  I’m happy for him.  You, the reader, have choices too.  I hope you are choosing to start your own fire.

OPUS, remember, is the one you want…