WHO ARE YOU?

What work I have done I have done because it was play. If it had been work, I shouldn't have done it. Who was it who said "Blessed is the man who has found his work"? Whoever it was, he had the right idea in his mind. Mark you, he says "his work" -- not "somebody else's work".The work that is really a man's own work is play and not work at all. Cursed is the man who found some other man's work and cannot lose it. When we talk about the great workers of the world we are really talking about the great players of the world. The fellows who groan and sweat under the weary load of toil that they bear never can hope to do anything great. How can they when their souls are in a ferment of revolt against the employment of their hands and brains? The product of slavery, intellectual, or physical can never be great
- Mark Twain

When you ask yourself "who am I", is your answer an occupation? A role? A conglomeration of prior life experiences? If so, then you may very well be doing something in your life that you don't really feel like you "chose". If you describe who you are in terms of what you have "become", I would ask that you start rethinking the answer to the question "who are you?". One of the most painful mid-life experiences my clients face is the realization that they aren't doing or being what they were really born to be or do. When we see someone doing what they were born to do we usually see greatness. Its inescapable. When we watch Lebron James dunk a basketball, or Celine Dion sing on stage we don't just see greatness. We see the intersection of passion and talent. Celine Dion painting houses, or Lebron James driving a truck would be a travesty. And I'd venture to guess that such a life wouldn't be nearly as fulfilling to each of them.
Not because they are rich and famous either. But because they wouldn't be doing what they were destined to be doing. They wouldn't be there authentic selves.

Well, your life is no different than theirs. Your talents and passions may be very different. But where your talent and your passions intersect is where you have to be for you to live a fulfilling second half of life. Unfortunately, far too many people are living in lives where they have no passion for what they do and often aren't very talented in the field they are in. I am shocked at the number of people who are doing their current occupation almost completely by accident. They got good or not so good grades in school. They had a certain type of parents who encouraged a certain course of employment. They met a friend who liked their job and "got them in" to the field. They "just needed to make some money" so they responded to the ad. And what happened next? ...They either got comfortable or they got trapped as their income rose. Now they feel like they can't leave and "start over" because of "obligations". This is the exact fate that Mark Twain describes as "slavery" in the quote at the opening of this post. Its a form of soul death to be doing "work" everyday that is inconsistent with who you really are. Its ineffficient for our society. Its poisonous to you. But the opposite is also true! Doing what you truly enjoy and getting paid for it is an enormous component to a fulfilling second half of life.

If you are not doing what you were destined to do, then you are just acting. If you are acting your life has certain characteristics. You are likely staring at a clock every day at your job. You are always looking for the weekend or the next vacation. You start getting a feeling of dread on Sunday afternoon when you think about your workweek starting tomorrow. Monday's are horrible. You do just as much as you can "get away" with at work. You literally, have a life outside of your job and the time within it is just time being burnt away. What a horrible fate and one that I would encourage every single one of my clients to avoid or change. Its one of my favorite things to work on with clients because I believe it is one of the greatest ways to increase fulfillment in life. When you love what you do for a living, you never work a day in your life.

Remember this, it is actually easier to be who you really are than to act everyday like someone else. So if you are really a poet but your job title says your an accountant, all the accounting in the world isn't going to actually make you an accountant. A real accountant loves accounting. A poet acting like an accountant is likely just going to be a bad accountant. It is much more natural to be who you already are. The big paradox here is most people fail to be who they really are for "fear of failure" when in reality you are much more likely to "fail" pretending to be something your not. In fact, when you really think about it, you can't fail to be who you really are!

So how do we get on the path of becoming who we really are? The starting point is asking a simple question. "What would I do if I knew there was no way to fail?" Another great question is "What would I do if money wasn't an object?" These two questions will likely immediately bring forth some great emotions of excitement and passion. Feel them. Take them in. Your entire life can feel like that if you simply align what you "do" with who you "are".

Its incredibly to think about how we as human beings are so far behind the rest of the natural world in this regard. We don't see squirrels frustratingly trying to "be fish". We don't see oak trees struggling to sprout pretty blossoms so they can "be flowers". Lions aren't pounding their paws on the ground in frustration at not being able to fly so they can "be birds". Nature is perfect at peace with what it "is" and as a result all these beings are "perfect" at doing and being what they truly are. We humans, with all of our potential to experience ourselves make the horrible mistake of allowing our childhoods, or parents, or socio-economic status or education to determine for us who we "are" when all along it is right inside us just waiting to come forth!

Next post, I am going to give you an example of the tragic fate of disregardng who you really are. I am going to tell you the story of "Virgil". Until then spend time today thinking about who you "really are".

If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.
-Joseph Campbell