I just read something crazily inspiring for a creative-type of any ilk, written (and illustrated) by someone much younger than me who has already discovered things I should know but do not practice.
A young lawyer with six-figure student loans tries life in the big city at a prestige law firm. Quickly she realizes that the price to be paid for her "dream" job (other people's dream, maybe, her parents' dream for her, definitely) is her absolute self. What is her "absolute" self, as I am referring to it here? (That's my word, not hers.) She's an artist. Over time she discovers that her inner artist has become someone she used to be, thanks to the finite amount of time each one of us human beings are given on this earth each and every day.
Well, you know where this is going. She chucks the stuffy, soul-killing, work-work-work life and heads on into life as an artist. By degrees. She begins by rebelling a tiny bit against the dress code. Bit by bit she wades into the waters of the reclamation of her soul. Now she's a full-time artist. She is free.
Everything I think and try to do has a tieback to God. He is the creator of my soul. He is the life behind my spirit and the only reason I can get up in the morning. He created me to love writing, to thrive on shaping and bending and manipulating language to let someone know exactly how I feel, what I have seen, what I think I know.
Sometimes I have heard my son play his guitar for hours. When he is doing that, I imagine time stands still for him. He is experiencing what it means to be fully alive. When your work is not tied to your passion, it MUST have limits drawn around it to leave room for your passion. I pray for my kids' futures, that what they love will be tied up into what they make a living at. Because after all, minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, day-by-day, they won't be making a living, they'll be making a life.
A young lawyer with six-figure student loans tries life in the big city at a prestige law firm. Quickly she realizes that the price to be paid for her "dream" job (other people's dream, maybe, her parents' dream for her, definitely) is her absolute self. What is her "absolute" self, as I am referring to it here? (That's my word, not hers.) She's an artist. Over time she discovers that her inner artist has become someone she used to be, thanks to the finite amount of time each one of us human beings are given on this earth each and every day.
Well, you know where this is going. She chucks the stuffy, soul-killing, work-work-work life and heads on into life as an artist. By degrees. She begins by rebelling a tiny bit against the dress code. Bit by bit she wades into the waters of the reclamation of her soul. Now she's a full-time artist. She is free.
Everything I think and try to do has a tieback to God. He is the creator of my soul. He is the life behind my spirit and the only reason I can get up in the morning. He created me to love writing, to thrive on shaping and bending and manipulating language to let someone know exactly how I feel, what I have seen, what I think I know.
Sometimes I have heard my son play his guitar for hours. When he is doing that, I imagine time stands still for him. He is experiencing what it means to be fully alive. When your work is not tied to your passion, it MUST have limits drawn around it to leave room for your passion. I pray for my kids' futures, that what they love will be tied up into what they make a living at. Because after all, minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, day-by-day, they won't be making a living, they'll be making a life.
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