Everyone always has a day job, even well-off folks who have a lot of time or someone like me who sold his business. While I am no longer an employee or an entrepreneur – and I enjoy more creative freedom than I used to – serving as Executive Director of my non-profit Divination Foundation is work. Writing books, like Great Decisions, Perfect Timing, is a lot of work. Paying bills and taxes is work, and managing one’s investments is serious work too.
Most people want more freedom, some room to move. You may not feel you have creative freedom within your current occupation. Even if you don’t have as much as you would like, you have cause to celebrate how much freedom you do have. Only 250 years ago you would have had no choice over many important things—including livelihood, where you lived or even whom you were married off to!
Throughout history, most of a person’s identity was predetermined by family and circumstance. There was little freedom (or privacy) at all. The American and French revolutions gave rise to democratic societies and, together with the Industrial Revolution, the rise of a middle class. Urbanization led to a decline of village customs like arranged marriages and, in general, greatly increased the number of occupational options that people were able to choose from.
Does this progress mean we will ever achieve the freedom to do absolutely anything we want, whenever we want? No. We can choose our trade, but even so, it’s the rare person who can make a living (mostly) doing something they passionately love. Nevertheless, we can still be grateful that we have so much more freedom than our ancestors and many of us have some choice of occupation according to how a job suits our nature and temperament.
In its twisted way, the 2008 financial crisis made it easier for people to appreciate their day job – because they were happy to have one at all! Many people who were laid off had a hard time finding employment, and were forced to reinvent themselves. In some cases this was a positive disruption, an opportunity to discover a new occupation that may be in better alignment with one’s sense of creative and personal freedom. Now that the job freeze seems to be thawing, more people are able to make adjustments to their job descriptions toward doing business that makes greater room for heart and spirit. And, with a more inclusive and empathic feminine style of leadership, we are changing the face of the workplace from the inside out.
Whatever occupation you find yourself in, the ultimate key is to find the meaning in the service (or products) you help provide, and see how it at least indirectly supports your personal development path – and possibly the evolution of your company – with the help of your own improved decision-making.
As long as you have a day job that is not harming anyone (including yourself), consider yourself fortunate. As you learn how to make better intuitive decisions that bring you into closer and closer alignment with your own highest values, bit-by-bit you’ll be guided to perceive whatever it is you do with a perspective that supports both personal satisfaction and advancement.
