This question showed up for me this week after I spent the last three months doing work that caused me to more fully understand what I am, and what I definitely am not.
In hindsight, in my world there is no such thing as the wrong work. If business cards spoke with complete honesty mine would read “Lori Kane. Super Smart. After the Fact.”
In Lori Land there is the work that brings forth your truest self, bringing with it peace, gratitude, and joy, for you, your family, your community, and even your planet, most days, because we’re all connected. I call it, Work Ahhh. It’s work that so energizes you that you’ve already started the next piece of it as you wrap up the current project, without having thought about it much or planned it, more just for the fun of it.
Then there is the work within which you as an individual are learning the hard way about yourself, which isn’t wrong. Like it or not, sometimes we need to learn the hard way to drive a point home. I’m going to call this work, Work Meh. You’re just glad to be done when you’re done.
From March through April, I worked on a project that involved busyness, deadlines, goals, and event planning. These may all be fantastic things for some people, but they are not great things for me. In fact, I think it’s safe to call them the Four Horsemen of a Lori Apocalypse.
I wound up tired, grumpy, stressed, and, eventually, angry at others. But it wasn’t them I was angry at, it was me. I was doing Work Meh and I wasn’t happy about it.
I need space and time: lots of it. I need to float and listen to let go, to reflect, to write, and to make things with my hands, with friends. This is my right work.
My truest self loves to move and feel with the seasons: loves to wonder and think by the decade, century, and millennia. Not attempting to rush through 75 emails before the end of the day.
My story wrangling work is my Work Ahh. And how do I know it’s the right work?
Because it was my refuge when the rest of my world wasn’t working. Because I escaped to it, and played with it, and was reenergized by it. Because even when I leapt into it angry, I emerged smiling. Also. Even though I was busy with other things, I kept at it, kept feeling its quietly enticing pull, like a favorite tune hummed for the pure joy of it.
Today, even when Work Meh creeps in, I am in constant contact with the work I dearly love. So I have one last thing to share.
At the end of this week, our new book will be available! Woo hoo! A Travel Guide for Transitions: Because Freaking Out About This by Myself Totally Sucks.
A book more quirky than cool, like it’s authors, it is home to quotes, essays, and playful, vivid drawings (Thanks Wendy!) about people savoring, thriving, and surviving life and work transitions. By the end of this week, you’ll be able to find it on Amazon.com, available for the Kindle, if you have one, and for the Kindle app, to use on other devices and computers and digital thingys. I’ve been reading it on my iPad. If I can figure it out, anyone can. Well, okay, Bas had to help me, but I eventually got it.
Later in the summer it will also become a print-on-demand book, in case you’re ever feeling demanding, because that where Work Ahhh is leading Bas. And if that’s not enough of us you’ll be able to read lots about it, and all our other work, on our new website, www.OddballEmpire.com, because that’s where our Work Ahhh led us both next.
Ahhh.