I have a good problem: I have a lot of interests! I keep trying to consolidate all of my interests into one “career,” so that I can do what I love all the time and get paid for it. That’s the dream, anyway. And I think it’s a good dream, a great thing to strive for… unless trying to make all my interests into a job would either ruin the fun of them (which I’ve experienced before) and/or turn them into something they’re not really meant to be for me. For example, if I love doing yoga, does that mean I should become a yoga instructor? Not necessarily. Maybe I should just do yoga in the comfort of my own home, in absolute solitude, for my own well-being, with no money or strings attached.
Maybe sometimes our “trying to make a living” gets confused or entangled with “trying to make a life.” I DO want to make a decent living, so that I can have a place to live and food to eat. However, what I really want is to master the art of living – not making a living, but living itself. I think the confusion comes in because I live in a society that values work and money above everything else – above even one’s well-being or life. I am trained to always look for ways to make money. If I love writing, make a career of it. If I love singing, become a professional singer. And even more often, unfortunately, those messages don’t come with one’s interests in mind; instead of “make money doing what you love,” the message is “make money however you can, no matter how unethical it may be. It is a dog-eat-dog world, and you have to look out for #1.” I do not subscribe to that belief. I believe that I can do something I love for a living. But even more, I think that I can have a happy life and that work is only a part of it.
I’ve had a couple ideas recently. One is to record on GarageBand my own a capella version of The Fray’s song, Never Say Never. Another is to write what I call a “fragmented memoir.” This would be a memoir with different sections giving a different perspective on my life. One would be my life as a tragedy. Another would be my life as a comedy… and so on.
What is the significance of these ideas? Maybe nothing. Will they lead me to a way to make a living? Maybe, maybe not. Or a life? Maybe, maybe not. I can only hope that following my heart’s desires, however strange or disconnected from the rest of my life they may seem, will lead me in a positive direction. In the very least, I think that it will make me more in tune with myself and my own intuition. And that alone is very valuable.
