Start Doing. Start Having. Start Being.

The Enviable Working Life

In so far as I envy my partner's working life, it's because she works part time and the attitude of her work seems rather laid back to me. What's even more important, she is creating long term value. The focus is not on making quickly more money, but on making more people educated and happy. At least that’s what I perceive. In my line of work we sometimes focus on that too, but we mainly focus on quick money - quick as in a few years not a few decades.


I envy my partner's working life because she delves more in the oceans of humanities. Whereas I delve in the oceans of electronics. It could of course also be that I need to navigate uncharted waters. Everyone will eventually get tired floating the same seas over and over again, don’t they?

So what can I do to incorporate more of the things I like about my partner's working life into mine? What can anybody do, who would like to do, have or be more of what someone else is doing, having or being?

Start doing. Start having. Start being it...


  1. Take a good look at what that someone else is really having, doing or being. And I mean have a really good look, not just a glimpse - really observe.
    Is her line of work really laid back, or have I seen only a few parts of the whole picture? Does she really has less to do with electronics than I? What about the value she creates - how do I actually know what value that is and how it’s measured in her working life?

    The purpose of this step is to gain awareness and a deeper understanding of our own perceptions.


  2. Observe and count the parts of your working life where you might already be doing some of what you envy in others.
    What parts of your working life are laid back, if even for a little bit? Where do I have the chance to delve in her field of work? What value am I creating - value to the outside, value to myself?

    The purpose of this step is to gain awareness and a deeper understanding of our own reality.

  3. Understand where you're coming from. Envy is a story you tell yourself about the things you desire and don't have, that someone else has and a story about the things someone is lacking but you have and are averse to. All stories have beginnings, even the stories we tell ourselves. It might be that we don't remember them anymore, but the beginnings were there. Somewhere along the line you have made a choice – you might have chosen to get into your current working life or you might have chosen to not get out of it.
    When did you make that decision? What did you get out of it? How would you choose now?

    The purpose of this step is to find out about the conscious or unconscious choices you have made along the way, in order to be able to take on more responsibility about your own life and make more deliberate choices going forward.

  4. Take up one thing you envy the most, one thing of your desires or aversions and create five minutes of your working life, where you choose to do the thing you envy.
    After writing this I'm going to take five minutes and lay back. After that no-one, not even I can say that my working life isn't laid back at all.

    The purpose of this step is to use your built up awareness and make a simple deliberate choice to do something really small right away. All the awareness and understanding doesn’t help you to move forward if you won’t act on it. The good thing is, you only have to do a simple small thing – like taking five minutes to enact the working life you desire to have.

  5. Be proud of yourself and the small step you took and do it again tomorrow, or the day after.
    Maybe tomorrow I'll take five minutes where I read something. Maybe I take five minutes to think about the long term value I have an opportunity to create in my working life. Or maybe I’ll work five minutes more tomorrow, so I can work five minutes less the day after and have a part time working day.

    The purpose of this step is to feel good about what you do and have achieved, even if it’s a really small thing. Oprah Winfrey has said that “the more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.”

How wold you finish that sentence "In so far as I envy my partner’s working life, it's because..."? More importantly, how are you going to fill the next five minutes after you finish reading this?


Celebrate your life!
Siim

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