The work that you do

During the past few weeks I have been feeling overwhelmed not by my work, but how it makes me feel in comparison with others. I started asking questions about what it means to build a career, to feel useful; to think there is a purpose. Luckily I found a New Yorker Magazine that one of my neighbors left and I found this essay by Toni Morrison titled The Work You Do, the Person You Are. What I read couldn’t be more timely. When Morrison was complaining about her job to her father this is what he replied:

“1. Whatever the work is, do it well—not for the boss but for yourself.
2. You make the job; it doesn’t make you.
3. Your real life is with us, your family.
4. You are not the work you do; you are the person you are.
I have worked for all sorts of people since then, geniuses and morons, quick-witted and dull, bighearted and narrow. I’ve had many kinds of jobs, but since that conversation with my father I have never considered the level of labor to be the measure of myself, and I have never placed the security of a job above the value of home.
”

This list made so much sense. Since then whenever I feel frustrated I take a deep breath and I try to remember myself that I am not defined by an office and a schedule. I am so much more and everything is temporary. So I just focus in do my part with pleasure and joy. So far it has worked.