Your One Wild and Precious Life Demands It
Consider the story of Mark Twain in his bid to apply for a job. The position called for a reporter-at-large on the newspaper Territorial Enterprise. But to get to an interview, Samuel Clemens had to walk 130 miles to Virginia City in Nevada Territory.
As the story goes: “He arrived at the newspaper’s offices one hot afternoon in August, a dust-covered, weary stranger in a slouch hat, with a revolver slung on his belt, and a roll of blankets on his back. He wore a blue woolen shirt and dusty trousers tucked into his boots. Dropping into a chair, he announced: “My name is Clemens, and I’ve come to write for the paper.”
Now I ask you: Would you walk 130 miles to apply for a job that you really wanted? And was there such a passion for you (paid job or unpaid) before you arrived at Lakeside? And is there such a passion in your life now?
The truth of the matter is this: according to a Louis Harris Poll, only one-third of Americans today like what they do for a job, and one-fifth actually hate their jobs.
In that regard, let me tell you a story. Once there were two guys: this other guy and yours truly. We worked together. In fact, we had the same position: on the line, the assembly line in a factory, assembling hose clamps.
The official position was listed as “rubber stuffer.” Can you imagine that as an occupation on that old game show “What’s My Line?” Well, as technically as I can describe it, our job was to stuff rubber thing-a-ma-jigs into metal whatcha-ma-call-its.
And let me confess that being the rather effete, aesthetically inclined, artsy-craftsy person I am, I didn’t know back then that hoses had clamps that required stuffing.
Nevertheless, I am descended from factory-line people (my New England grandfather assembled shoes on the line), so I should have at least relished the chance of getting in touch with my roots – although I never thought I would be “following in Granddad’s shoes” so to speak!
After all, my parents worked hard to send their kids to college so that we wouldn’t be repeating the patterns of the family system, at least occupationally. And I believe that their sons’ making lots of money had a great deal to do with why my parents wanted their kids to go to college. Little did they suspect that I would wind up as a modestly paid minister!
So, there I was, with four of my five academic degrees completed, without a so-called “white-collar” position in sight. I was, to put it euphemistically, “between things.” And for me it didn’t matter what I did at that point, because I needed money and couldn’t find a job for which I was more suited and prepared.
Oh, yes, I didn’t want to be on the line, although I knew that I would have to be an assembler of hose clamps only until a job that I was passionate about came along. So, being on the line for me and stuffing rubbers made me feel more like a dissembler than an assembler.
Then I met this other guy who my co-workers called “The Professor.” Like me he was in his early 30’s. And like me, he had college degrees. In fact, he had a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of California at Berkeley.
But unlike me, The Professor had been working on the line for a number of years. And unlike me, he freely confessed that he chose to stuff rubbers rather than teach English Literature or do anything else. That he actually loved his assembly-line job. That he achieved great satisfaction in the repetitive tasks of putting metal and rubber together, hour after hour, year after year. And why? Because he could be his own person! Because he could have his own thoughts – and get lost in planning the great novel he was writing. Because he made a heck of a lot more money than he did teaching English composition to college freshman.
Nevertheless, I learned various lessons from the experience, the most important one being about time. For The Professor, time stood still because he loved what he was doing. For me, my two weeks being “on-line” in a factory might as well have been a lifetime!
Truly, we must find our own way in the world the best we can. And if on the journey we discover great joy in what we do for a living, then how wonderful! But when we consider how much time goes into one’s working life and how many people do not love or even like what they do, we must address this as an ethical problem.
In an ideal world, each of us will find a passion or many passions. The definition of “work” will fade into the reality that for us our life is a whole piece rather than a disjointed one. The individuals who have discovered this are the lucky ones, I believe. Again, it really does not matter what job they have. It’s finding a passion that is important for their spirit.
This passion for one’s chosen work is an example of what has historically been called a “calling” – especially by religions. The concept comes from the Latin vocare— to be called to a higher purpose, to a place of nobility beyond the consideration of how large the paycheck is or how much personal recognition is received.
Robert Bellah says of this: “In the strongest sense of a calling, work constitutes a practical ideal of activity and character that makes a person’s work morally inseparable from his or her life. It subsumes the self into a community of disciplined practice and sound judgment whose activity has meaning and value in itself, not just in the output or profit that results from it.”
How many of us have had or currently have a calling, a job which is wonderfully and totally integrated into our lives, either as the work we do in service to others and/or as work which allows us to achieve personal meaning?
Unfortunately, there are not many people who have a clear sense of their calling – whether or not they have one which allows them to make a living or to volunteer their time and talents in a meaningful way.
But how fortunate we are at Lakeside because we still have time! Time during our retirement to discover our true calling, if we have not already done so. Have you?
Or are you bored? I think that even being burned-out by a job is better than being bored! At least burned-out people have an opinion! But bored people have not made the effort to get involved in something, to discover a passion in something, and consequently might not just be bored but boring!
Do you know what brought down the ancient Roman Empire? It was boredom. Consider the fact that out of two million people in imperial Rome, half a million of them did not work – they were on the dole! The historian Toynbee gives this as a major reason for the collapse of that empire—people were not kept busy doing productive things. They did nothing positive, or simply, they did nothing!
Now, if any of you retired folk out there believe this is your idea of retirement and you are happy doing nothing, well, okay! But if doing nothing for you means being bored, well, that’s not okay! It is neither good for you nor for anyone else. It might even be destructive of modern society! Remember the Romans!
Truly there are many activities in the Lake Chapala area that can keep you busy: social, civic, philanthropic, artistic, spiritual…. Then again, with what time we chronologically gifted (i.e. seniors) have left, we must ask ourselves if any of these things we do constitute a passion, a vocare that sustains our human spirit. Or are we merely busy?
Indeed, following your bliss at this point in life might mean that you discover something new, something you never tried before. It might even be something you create for yourself or others.
And so, what if you find out that you are not good at it! As long as you love doing it, why allow detractors to deter you? After all, it is your life we are talking about, isn’t it? Not somebody else’s.
As that marvelous poet Mary Oliver asks us: “Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
So, my friend, I hope you Follow Your Bliss at Lakeside! Because life is too short to do otherwise.
Note: Don Beaudreau is Ojo’s “Lakeside Living Editor,” and a member of the Ajijic Writers Group. He has just finished writing his eleventh book called THE MAGIC OF LAKESIDE, Reflections from Lake Chapala, MX.
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A good read.
Where can I het the book “ the Magic of Lakeside”.?