“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” – Rumi
Summer is ending and with that goodbye comes hello to the last of the summer work. The last bush hogging of the pastures, the last weeding in the garden, the last cleaning of the pool signals a transition from one season to another. It also means the workload is pretty high right now. I’ve never been afraid of work or working hard. In fact, I love to write things on my to-do list so I can check them off as accomplished. That list is long right now and I’ll be busy for the next couple of months. I like it that way. Even though there are times I might wish for a pajama day or a hang-out-by-the-pool day, most of my feel-good days involve work.
I think the concept of work has developed a bad rap. We think of overwork, burnout, or work-a-holic and picture a frazzled person running from one task to the next with no satisfaction or value tied to accomplishment. We argue over paychecks and paid time off, holidays and mental health days, and work becomes something connected to the money we earn and the toll that stress takes on our bodies. It seems a shame that much of our lifetime is spent “trying to make” a living rather than living. Does it have to be that way?
I’m aware that our society is built on an economic structure. We make money, we spend money, and we buy what we need to survive. But surviving is more than a matter of paying the bills. It’s more than the bare necessity required to exist. I believe if we think of work less as work (bad word) and more as work (joyful word), we can start to shift from survival to revival. We can start to claim the joy in our work, regardless of what we do.
Growing up in Nashville, I often went to Kroger with my mom. There was a man who worked for the grocery store that became somewhat of a celebrity. His job? He gathered the shopping carts in the parking lot and returned them to the store. People called him “the cart wrangler.” I think everyone would agree that his job wasn’t critical to the operations of Kroger – but his joy was. This man exuded pure goodness, pure light. His attitude towards Kroger shoppers made their day. And then he made the news. No one could believe he actually liked his job, but he did. He found joy in it, and that joy reverberated through the community.
There’s an interesting connection between doing and being. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. We can do our job and be joyful. We can pursue our creativity and be grateful. We can work toward whatever calls to our heart and be restored. We can look at the Rumi quote chosen for this month, “Let the beauty of what you love be what you do,” and nod our heads. We get that sentiment. I think the words work equally well when a couple of them are rearranged:
Let the beauty of what you do be how you love.
Like the cart wrangler.
Like all of us choosing to call our work beautiful.
Blessings,
Sandy