Said by the Weary

"Abandon all attachment to the results of action and attain supreme peace."

- Bhagavad Gita 

I've had some unpleasant jobs in the past. I've had filthy, mind-numbing, labor intensive gigs that sucked the life right out of me. I've had dangerous jobs where a misstep or moment of inattention could result in missing fingers or a 100-foot fall.

After a few years of this kind of work I was struck by a strange question: what makes a certain job or task unpleasant/mundane/mind-numbing?

Why is it that jack-hammering a floor-slab in a four-foot crawl space sucks while installing baseboards and crown moulding is fun? Both are tasks. One is more physically taxing, to be sure, while the other requires more precision and concentration, but objectively speaking neither is "good" or "bad."

The only real difference between the two is personal preference. How you view a task determines whether it is "pleasant" or "fucking horrible." It's an arbitrary distinction. Want proof? If certain tasks were objectively pleasant or unpleasant, people would be unanimous in their agreement. In reality, you will meet people who like this kind of work and others who despise it, people who enjoy this task and others who dread it.

As it turns out, my discovery was no discovery at all. Philosophers from east and west have been saying pretty much the same thing for centuries. Every value judgment you make is a fabrication, a label generated by your mind and attached to an external object and activity. The labelling process is unconscious until you take charge of it. 

Instead of griping about my dirty, gruelling job, I started looking at it from a different angle. "This isn't labour," I began telling myself, "it's a work-out. I'm getting paid--handsomely, I might add--to exercise."

Another way to look at it...

Suddenly, demolition work didn't seem so bad.

In any case, most to us don't have a choice: we have to work whether we want to or not. Might as well find a way to enjoy it, or at least make the best of it. Need to change the way you perceive work? My good buddy Kahlil Gibran might be able to help you with that.

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labor a misfortune. 

But I said to you that when you work you fulfill a part of the earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born 

And in keeping yourself with labor you are in truth loving life, 

And to love life through labor is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.

Life is labor. If you love life, you best start loving labor. How does that Bible scripture go again? If you don't work, you don't eat. And if you don't eat, you don't live. Life and labour are inseparable. Accept it, adapt, and move forward.

Hercules didn't whine about his 12 Labours

You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary. 

And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge, 

And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,

And all knowledge is vain save when there is work, 

And all work is empty save when there is love;

And what is it to work with love? 

It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit.

This doesn't mean that you must love your job, only that you should work with love, by focusing your all into the task at hand. Restrict yourself to the present moment, put your entire mind into whatever it is you're doing, and you will find that the painfully slow days now fly by.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.

In other words, if you spend your days whining about your job, you better spend your evenings looking for a new one. We have to work to live, sure, but you get to choose where you work.

If you aren't searching for a way out, then your current job must not be so bad. So do yourself a favour and fixate on the positive aspects, the ones that stop you from quitting.

Don't echo what was said by the weary. You're better than that. Make the best of your current situation while constantly looking for ways to improve it.

And whenever possible, work with love.

/rant over

Living Arrows

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. 

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. 

They come through you but not from you.

- Kahlil Gibran 

It's easy to miss the wonders that surround us. Most of us are too busy going through the motions to realize just how fascinating life really is. We take things for granted and no longer see the little miracles of everyday existence.

Children have no such problem. They're fascinated by everything. Nothing is mundane to a child. Everything sings with mystery. Everything is novel, new, bewildering and captivating. Everything is worth questioning.

As we move steadily toward adulthood we lose this sense of fascination with the world. We stop seeing things and see their labels instead. It's not that we forget how to look at the world properly but that we're gradually programmed not to. Our questions get answered or dismissed. We drape a veil over the mystery and call it solved. Curiosity goes into hibernation and we surrender to the labels.

A good way of lifting the veil is to contemplate things we take for granted, things that we accept without hesitation or question.

Take procreation, for example. People have kids. Big deal! They've been doing it for hundreds of thousands of years. Even so, the act of procreation is awe-inspiring on a variety of different levels. Even at its most basic, the act involves two people connecting in some way, be it emotional, psychological, or physical, and making a new person together. Each parent supplies a bit of raw material and the mother, blessed vehicle of life, nurtures and brings the seed to bloom.

It's primordial, like a cell dividing or a chemical reaction, and the result is a brand new human being.

In The Prophet, Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran offers some insights on the act of procreation and parents' subsequent role in their children's lives. For instance, he tells us

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

Instilling children with the ideas of yesterday is counter to Nature, which operates by progressing, not regressing. We should give our children the tools necessary so that they may discover their own beliefs. If those beliefs happen to differ from our own, so be it. They are their own people. 

Gibran goes on:

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. 

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. 

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; 

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

What can any parent do save offer a stable foundation for her children to stand on? This is the very basis of human progress, one generation building upon the works of generations past, not maintaining the status quo but improving upon it.

Note also that in Gibran's metaphor, the parent is merely the bow, not the archer. In some way this is true, as we are conditioned to act and think the way we do by our past experiences, culture, and beliefs. Even so, I'd like to think that parents play some part in the aiming, which often works to the detriment of their children.

How many parents try to steer their children toward certain paths only to have it backfire? How many groom their children from birth to be professional athletes, doctors, and lawyers only to have them do a 180?

If you are a parent, remember that the children in your care don't belong to you. You are not their owner, master, or boss. They are not a coat rack for you to hang your failed dreams upon. You are their custodian, their guide, and it is your job to give them the tools necessary to succeed regardless of the path they decide to walk.

Aim your living arrows not at the target your parents missed when firing you into the world, but at the target best suited to your children's passions, skills, and talents.

/rant over