Job not your passion? Don't worry neither is mine!

I read a quote this week “You don’t become grateful because of joy, you experience joy because you are grateful” (at this point I would note who said it but I don't recall that part - they will know who they are and if I figure it out I’ll be sure to update this!).

Everyday we get bombarded with messages about what success looks like and how if we buy this, or do that then we’ll be living our best life. Most of these messages come at us and we aren’t even aware of it. We just take them in, and they are so consistent, they become part of our internal narrative.

These messages are so consistent and so powerful that they can actually override the reality we are experiencing. I’ve seen this in our kids. I’ve been the one in our family to work full time while my husband was the stay at home parent. It was a decision we made before we had kids and was the right one for us (#youdoyou). Despite having their Dad as the stay at home parent, all our kids have still defaulted at various times to the outdated “mum roles” and “dad roles”. When it's pointed out to them, them they know it doesn’t make sense given their lived reality but still, it was their unconscious bias - fed by external messages.

Part of my year of creating has given me the space to question a lot of the internal narratives I had going on in loop around my head. Things like I’m not creative. I’m no good at drawing, writing, cooking, gardening. The best realisation to come out of the year for me though was that I can just create for the joy of it. Not to be the best or to start a business from - just create.

For years the unconscious narrative I had fallen into was that you can only be happy if your job is your passion. My thinking now - what a crock of shite! If you’ve got that I’m truly cheering you on from afar. But sometimes a job can just be a job. Not the thing that defines you and certainly not a total picture of who you are. I’m all for everyone living a life that they actively participate and thrive in - its’ my why - but what this looks like for each of us isn’t the same by any stretch.

I look back on all the years that I tormented myself that my job wasn’t my passion. I was constantly trying to figure out how I could escape the torture of being a corporate worker to one where I had a successful boutique business. Well there goes a fair few years wasted! It would irk and confuse me even more when people would comment “I couldn’t be a career person like you” - WTF, I’m not a career person! I’m someone who made a decision that me continuing to work while my husband remained at home with our kids would work for us. It was purely a financial decision for us. That’s it.

The only reason I worked and my husband stayed home was I could earn more money.

I’m now grateful for my “corporate” job. It has enabled us to create a strong and thriving family unit. We can support our kids financially with whatever they decide to do after college, which we are hoping gives them the freedom to seek out and explore options. We’ve travelled to Europe as a family, have a manageable mortgage in a home we love and designed to support the way we live, and don’t need to worry about the cost of things within reason.

Our kids have always had their Dad there to greet them after school. He has attended school events. We both have been able to coach (though “he” is much better than “she”……..”she” gets super frustrated when “she” sees laziness…...he’s much better at taking that in his stride). Having a “parent” who can just be there for the kids is the most precious and priceless thing my corporate job has given us.

I love working with the world leading companies I get to have a “look under the bonnet” of with their research and development work. With these clever companies I’m confident our future has the opportunity to be wonderful, vibrant and sustainable. And now that I’m not trying to make a business out of everything I try, I also love creating.

Creating is a bit of a funny term. So I’ll clarify what I mean by it.

Creating for me is the art of turning something - time, materials, sounds, words - into something else, and in the process of creating, an additional thing also evolves……...memories.

During my Year of Creating, I captured through journaling most things that I created (or tried to - waffles were a complete failure though something was still created - a bloody mess!). By capturing I discovered I did a whole lot more creating and became conscious of it. Dinners, lunches and breakfast - creating meals. Gardening - creating foods and beautiful gardens. Knitting - creating clothes, preserving - creating jams, chutneys, pickles. Renovating a rocking chair - creating a refurbished piece of furniture and a connection to grandparents that have since left this physical world. Writing - creating poetry, short stories and more. Pottery - creating candle holders. Even just walks with my husband created space for us.

For a lot of my creations it stirred up memories, mostly good but not always, of times gone by. And each and every creation gave me the opportunity to create a new memory. Some will fade, some will be recalled when flicking through journals or looking at pictures. But those really special ones will be triggered by smells or a certain sound or by some random object or place and I’ll find myself smiling thinking of that moment in time and the people I was with - because the best memories are shared experiences with others.

So I am no longer searching for that business opportunity, I no longer try and make everything I do a monetary exercise and I no longer feel I can only have time for “fun” if I’m not working. Instead I now remain open to opportunities and I’m grateful for my job, grateful for the people I get to interact through it, grateful for the resources it gives me. And you know what - when you look at things through a lens of gratitude for what you do have, it really does bring joy.

Is there something that you used to resent that you are now grateful for? Leave a comment below or drop me a note here.

Nadine xx