Work should be enjoyable, as a wise man once said, "do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life." If you are working in a field that you enjoy the time you spend at work passes more quickly and your job brings less stress and more quality to life... I have worked many jobs in my life, many job types, and of those types there have been but a few I really enjoyed. I stuck with the ones I liked much longer than the ones I did not like. I have been a cook at many fast food places, a cook at a dinner, and even a cook at a strip club. I have worked on a factory line, and worked at a machine shop, worked on car detail, and car auctions, been security and a pizza delivery driver. I gave away free vacations to a time share, canvassed for the clean air act, sold magazines, done various forms of telesales from pens, to insurance policies..
Yet with working all these things, the ones I loved the most where the ones that I had more freedom and less boss over my shoulder... I loved delivering pizza, the majority of my time at work was spent in my car, and I made decent money doing it. Working as a cook at a strip club was fun. I made lots of friends there from staff to patrons, but I found they made half of their money back on what I spent on beer after work every night... Yet at this job, good music all day, I met interesting people, and I was left alone by the boss usually...
I found I didn't much like sales, and I was not for mundane warehouse work. At most every job, there was but one problem, I found that I felt cheated out of life.. That each venture was a waste of my mind, a waste of my time. I felt I was meant for more than what I was doing. This feeling was overwhelming at times, and down right maddening at other times... It caused arguments with friends, family and various acquaintances. No one understood, what I felt, or what was going on... I am not one to be controlled. Working for others in the mundane, is not my calling... If I can't do something creative with my time i don't want to do it I kept saying to my friends and family... I lost jobs countless times because on my break i would do something create, and instead of clocking back in early I would take my full break to Finnish the creativity I was doing... I even remember as I was learning how to make roses out of palms leaves, the owner of my last real job would make fun of me for it... He stopped laughing when one weekend I brought in cash on a Monday, and it was triple what I was making a whole week at work, and I said to him, "yes this is all from palm roses." Then I told him I quit, and never looked back...
Since then i have been living as an artist full time for 6 years... I have been doing the roses total for 8 years now.... Since starting with the rose I have learned how to make over 100 things out of the palms, some from books, some from random people I have met working the harbor over the years, some from the internet, and some just from my own creativity. All along the way I learned various new art techniques with painting as well, including learning how to use spray paints...
The whole way seeing a trail of improvement, and a since of accomplishment.
The road has not always been an easy one, I have had to live day to day as an artist, and some days have been much better than others. Yet at work, I am generally happy. I find that there are few times I am bored and that is when there is not much of a crowd. Usually though I am entertained enough by the fact I am making things with my own hands. I meet lots of interesting people, on a daily basis, one out of 100 I have a decent conversation with, 1 out of 1000 I have a great conversation with, and 1 out of 10,000 I bond with and make a connection... Maybe one out of ten of those do I have a deep connection with.... With the combination of meeting interesting people on a daily basis, making a living off my own creativity, and having the freedom to do things the way I feel they should be done, I don't have much stress when it comes to work... Money on the other hand can sometimes still be a stressful thing.. Over all I make more than I have at any other job I have ever had... Yet I also live in an expensive city, I have never been good at holding onto money, and I live day to day... This sometimes can be a curse...
Yet through all the hardships I face, I truly feel that my work has meaning, my life has purpose.. Each day I brighten someones life. I do something that changes the way they where thinking a little bit. Often, I change someone from being into a bad mood and send them into a good mood, all with the simple task of giving them a hand made rose... I help to create a better over all experience for the people who are touring the harbor... All while doing something that I love, being creative, spreading art and love to random people... I am not rich, and I am pseudo famous, I don't have a nice house, nor am I driving a fancy car. I don't get to party at playboy mansion. But I have had some great adventures, met many awesome people, experienced and learned more things than I ever thought I could learn, and for the most part I can say I enjoy most of my life..
This is weaving in and out of enjoyment, you find what you love and do it, regardless of the hurdles or the speed bumps in your way. It wont always go the way you want, but if you keep with it, it will always bring you back to enjoyment. You may have some bad time and stress come from doing what you love, but you will find that the more you do what you love, the more you will enjoy your life.. Because a good portion of your life is what you do for a living why would you spend that time doing anything else than something you enjoy? Think about it.
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