Thursday, October 14, 2010

Work and Career (pt. 1)


Work and Career issues have been (some of ) the largest "unresolved' issues in my life - certainly in the last few years.
Trying to find the right job...the right work...the right people...and not settle or do what is easiest.

Found this today:
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something -- your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever -- because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.
And that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking -- and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking -- don't settle.
Steve Jobs
Commencement Address at Stanford University
delivered 12 June 2005, Palo Alto, CA

7 comments:

Kitty said...

I think that's bullshit. "Work" is what you do to pay your bills. "Life" is what work pays for. Doing work that pays you enough to live the way you choose isn't "settling". It's doing what is required and there is no shame in it.

Joe D G said...

Life is free.
It doesn't need to be paid for.

Kitty said...

Houses aren't free. Food is occasionally free, but very few people grow all their own food. Those are fundamentals that work pays for.

Then we get to look at the optional stuff that make life more entertaining. Weather is free, but climate control is not. Movies and books can be free if you go to the the right place at the right time, but generally speaking entertainments have a cost to someone somehow.

And unless a woman manages to have her child in a field, even simply being born isn't free, It costs the price of a hospital room, or a midwife's fees or, at the very least, replacing a messed up mattress.

Free means someone else is paying your bill.

And, ultimately, it all comes down to "Chop wood. Carry water."

Joe D G said...

Oh my, this seems to have really pushed your buttons.
Perhaps you are confusing Life with Life "situation."
My life is free
My breath is free, my energy, my awareness my BEING is free.

Things in my life are not my life.

Kitty said...

If "you"'re going to use that perspective, there is no "you" to BE free.

Joe D G said...

Breath is free
Seeing is free
Being is free
Awareness is free
Freedom is free

Mitesh Dabhi said...

Well work "issues" have always cropped up in my life as far as I can remember. Have never really enjoyed any of my jobs and as "Steve Jobs" said - And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking -- and don't settle.

As of this point I have surrendered to my job, I realize that I don't like it very much but I surrender to it because things are this way.

Surrendering -- hoping that my inner life direction or the universe is going to show me which path to take next.