Your Real Work

For a lot of us, our dreams are separate from our work. Fellow dreamer (and hard worker, I might add) Kris shared something she heard, "Whatever you want, wants you." It made me wonder what would the world be like if everyone was doing what they wanted and what wanted them.

What if the cure for cancer is in the head of a convenience store worker? What if the world's best diplomat is toiling as a stressed-out lawyer? What if the song that should be the anthem to your road trip is languishing in the back drawer of a teacher's desk?

What is the world losing by you not doing what you dream of working at? I'm not suggesting you quit your day job, but to remind you that there are all kinds of paths to your dream. You must, though, admit into your life your dream which is your real work. Here is what a few notables throughout history had to say about doing that.



The first duty of a human being is to assume the right functional relationship to society ― more briefly, to find your real job, and do it.
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935), American writer of The Yellow Wallpaper.

The true way to render ourselves happy is to love our work and find in it our pleasure.
― Françoise Bertaut de Motteville (c. 1621–1689), French memoir writer.

Work while you have the light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you.
― Henri Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) Swiss philosopher, poet and critic.

The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more.
– Jonas Edward Salk (1914–1995), American biologist and physician best known for the development of the polio vaccine.

What work I have done I have done because it has been play. If it had been work I shouldn't have done it. Who was it who said, "Blessed is the man who has found his work"? Whoever it was he had the right idea in his mind. Mark you, he says his work--not somebody else's work. The work that is really a man's own work is play and not work at all. Cursed is the man who has found some other man's work and cannot lose it. When we talk about the great workers of the world we really mean the great players of the world. The fellows who groan and sweat under the weary load of toil that they bear never can hope to do anything great. How can they when their souls are in a ferment of revolt against the employment of their hands and brains? The product of slavery, intellectual or physical, can never be great.
– Mark Twain (1835–1910), American author and humorist.