Saturday, January 30, 2010

verb: its what you do.

so, once upon a time i worked at a restaurant and it was awful. after that i made a rule for my entire life about jobs: the only job i will ever have is one i would do even if i wasnt being paid to do it.
i realize that this is not feasible for most people. it is not feasible for me either. it is partially about attitude and partially about choice.  

attitude comes from here:

{It is not what we do, but how much love we put into the doing. If I belong to Christ and at that moment He wants me to be cleaning the toilets, or taking care of the sufferers from leprosy, or talking to the President of the United States, it is all the same; because I am being what God wants me to be, and doing what He wants me to do.
I belong to Him.}
mother theresa


choice comes from the decision to choose to work for less money or a less than perfect schedule to be in an environment that i dont dread going to.

my job now? i look forward to it. i get excited about it. and who wouldnt? i get paid to dance and sing and play with playdough and have picnics in thomas the tank engine tents and throw colorful scarves up in the air and see if who can catch them first and tickle fests and rasberries and be with the sweetest girls in the world. and then im like, how the heck am i getting paid to do this? and last year when i was teaching students with disabilities and taking them on adventures and laughing and crying and growing, i felt the exact same way.

one thing that changed my life was a book i read in Australia about being a twentysomething, and a question was asked: if you could get paid 10 million dollars a year to have any job, what would it be?
and the more i think about it, the more i want to pursue what god created me to do. because money dies with you. and fame only lasts a couple hundred years if youre lucky. 

i just think its really really really important to do what you love at (almost) any cost. and if that isnt possible (or even if it is) i think its just as important to love what you do, regardless. 

{If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lives a great street sweeper who did his job well.}
Martin Luther King Jr.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

That is one of my favourite MLK quotes EVER! :) I needed that reminder today. Thank you xxx

autumn said...

I LOVE that you wrote about this. I have made this decision too, and consequently I am doing the Job I was made to do and getting paid a whopping $0 a year. BUT, it is a choice and one that comes with many, many monetary sacrifices. People always say to me "you are so lucky you can stay home" and I just wish more people understood that making a choice to do what you are called to do is not always the easiest or most lucrative decision. I love this!

Chelsea said...

I half way agree with you. But we've talked about this before-so you already know how I feel.

We've both had multiple jobs at a time that were crappy jobs that we hated-but had to keep a roof over our heads-so having horrible jobs was the sacrifice we made in order to live in our own home and not with mom and dad. It depends on your situation though. and there are seasons where that is necessary.

Now, Dustin has a job he loves but that job came with seasons of frustration and making little money-and well, he's my husband so he kind of has a responsibility to me, and me to him so a lot of times we're forced to work at places that we dont like or whatever because that's what God gave us at that time to get us through. That's what he provided at that time-because seasons only last for a time. I don't think there is any shame in working a crummy job-if that crummy job puts food in the belly. That's just me.

I agree with autumn that staying home with your baby is a full time job-a hard job. It is harder than my 14 hour nanny days because at the end of the day I get to say goodbye and come back refreshed and ready to play.

Your job seems sooo fun! You were SO made to do what you do and you're wonderful at it!

Lauren @The Little Things We Do.... said...

sounds like you and i have the same job :).

i love the quotes you shared....truly great ones.

and i agree....attitude definitely plays a big factor.

oh...and P.S. you officially had the most genius idea for my toilet seat dilemma. going out to buy some bathtub crayons this weekend! thanks for the suggestion. i'll let you know how it goes......