I don't care for work. I care for creation, for lifting up others, and for love. When I act to accomplish those things, it can look a lot like work, and surely some people might call it that. I put a great deal of time and energy into the things I care about, absolutely. But I prefer to think of it as living lovingly, thoughtfully and consciously directed. Living is both more essential to life and more fun, so I try to start from the point of living, and whatever is the "work" of life must naturally flow from that. I will do well as my nature, learning, ability, growth, and circumstances permit and develop. In this way, I am always fired up about my "work." There are so many great things we can do in the world while we're alive. There's no time for mediocre and soul-sapping drudgery. There's no time to do less than our best.
I never did understand half-assing things until this one job where I slowly sank into the sad state of not caring about my work. I had started the job with my lowest pay ever under the impression that I was to improve the products of a business I appreciated, and that I would have some freedom in my hours to do so. After a time I realized that suddenly and instead, I was expected to perform little more than customer service and that I would need to maintain a regular schedule for that work. This was to happen while the changes I had originally been asked to make simply never happened and I maintained and endured the status quo, which was a state of decay. I felt under-appreciated, that my talent went unacknowledged and under-utilized, and that my vision for even small improvements was denied at every turn at a place which was already in a downward spiral. Before I saw that all this was happening I had been demotivated, demoralized, and disappointed. I ceased to care about the work because it wasn't even the work I had agreed to perform at all but rather found thrust upon me.
I went to work later and later because it took me longer and longer every day just to bring myself to go there. And then, I could work more peacefully, quietly with fewer people around, including the boss who had hired and then - I felt - ignored and betrayed me. Finally, the boss had enough of my odd hours. Boss told me it was now plain that I wasn't into the work and that if that were the case, then I wasn't needed anymore, after all. In that moment I was utterly relieved. I went home feeling free and alive again in the cool indigo of that sweet, crisp, evening.
After that, I knew I could never again do work which felt meaningless, work I didn't enjoy, work that didn't use or come from the best of me and my nature. They call it being fired, but they should call it being ashes, 'cause all that fire has gone out or else goes out, one way or another. Or maybe the fire was never there at all.
It took me a while to determine what would fire me up again. I think part of the reason I slogged through as lamely as I did for the time that I did was that I wasn't sure what could ignite me next, and so I hadn't been well-motivated to jump a ship where I had already committed to help out, albeit differently.
Sometimes I recall Dr. Penn - in describing the shiftiness of my moods, actions, and inactions along the lines of physics - telling me "An object in motion tends to stay in motion. An object at rest tends to stay at rest."
I have this tendency to be either completely ablaze or else ashes - there's no in between. I love love. I love making things, studying, science, nature, and contributing to personal, communal, and planetary health and well-being. That's my fire, and I only burn being in those ways. In between actions along those lines, it can be difficult to pry me from the mode of max-chill. That's just the conservation of energy required for those times I do burn, I suppose.
From ashes, I've had to learn to skip the process of finding motivation entirely because I never have found motivation. I think it's bullshit. For every reason to do, there's a reason not to do. If I do manage to convince myself that the reasons to do are better or even more rewarding than not to do and then act accordingly, I feel like I've just conned myself and end up acting grudgingly, even when I'm doing a decent thing. So I have decided to abandon that entire line of thinking. It doesn't serve me.
Fortunately, I don't need motivation at all anymore. I know at least some of what I really love, and what I value: I know my fire. It's there whenever I want or need it. So it's much easier to spontaneously combust than to build a fucking fire. I just get up and do the thing, and only then do the light and heat arrive. I don't need reasons, visions of what will be, or notions of how great I will feel when I do the thing, because all that's just imagination, bullshit. I just need my fucking fire.
That's the thing about ashes: as long as we live, there's still a little ember underneath, just waiting for the right fuel to ignite it. The breath of our desires (as for money and comfort) and the tinder of our abilities may be enough to stoke up some occupation that'll keep us warm enough to survive. But predilection, passion, or even mere curiosity explored may ignite that fire with which we warm and provide light to those around us, as well as ourselves.
Get fired and keep burning, friends. You are loved.
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