“Do what you love, the money will follow” wrote Marsha Sinetar in her practical and inspirational book. She talks about “discovering your right livelihood.” When I read it I was unemployed. I was drawn to this romantic idea of something I could do, earn a living, that would make my propeller spin! I could envision it in detail. And then Marsha brought me to reality as well as a path to follow.
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She talks about two tracks. I think of these two tracks as projects that I spend time on. One track I call the “make money now” track. This takes a lot of my time. The other is the do what you love track. This takes some of my time. I need to make money now while I do what I love. I must do both. I must spend more time on the make money now track as it keeps a roof over my head while I plot my deeper adventures.
Here is how Marsha says it; We must do the work first, invest in ourselves first, see faithfully in the small, steady, incremental ways of our chosen work first, and then – as a harvest of abundant crops naturally follows the seeding, watering and constant caring process, of seeds – the fruits of our efforts result.
I have referred to this for many years. Here are a few of the gems that inspire and provoke me to take become more responsible for my life;
- Choose whatever you want then pay for it.
- For the rare person who is religiously or spiritually inclined, work even becomes a vehicle for devotion, a way of utilizing one’s gifts and talents to serve others.
- I maintain that hard, patient, disciplined long-term effort is required to do one’s right livelihood.
- Turning our lives around is usually the beginning of maturity since it means correcting choices made unconsciously.
- Each choice we make consciously adds positively to our sense of ourselves and makes us trust ourselves more because we learn how to live up to our own inner standards and goals.
- Helplessness and powerfulness are both learned.
- Personal power can only be gained by choosing to act on behalf of our own inclinations, potentials and distinction.
- All day-to-day actions have the energy to transform our lives.
- We must decide for ourselves who we are, what our conduct should be, and how we wish to use our lives.
- Resourcefulness is the trait we must develop in ourselves if we want control over our working lives…our own innovation will be a needed ally.
- It is important to listen to ourselves and close out the noise from outside.
- “We are not here to be successful. We are here to be faithful.” Mother Teresa