There’s a common phrase that if you love what you do, then you will never work a day in your life. I have been thinking about my career choices lately. I think it might have to do with the great resignation that has happened where many workers have quit their jobs because of quality of life issues.
If you take a minimum wage job flipping hamburgers for a fast food joint, does it really say anything about who you are or have any impact on the rest of the world? Some people might say it doesn’t. I would say it does. In every experience, I have no matter how insignificant, I know that it says something about me, it changes my experience of my life, and it changes the world. If I were just working a minimum wage job, then I would be giving it my all and I would be hope to spread God’s love somehow into the world in whatever I was doing. A Zen master would say that I should find the Zen in the art of doing any task I find in life.
When it comes to my own life, I have been blessed to find not just one but two careers that I enjoy. They are complete opposites because one is all about numbers and the other is about words. Yet each one expresses how I approach life and give me the opportunity to practice my faith.
What I mean by an opportunity to practice my faith is whenever I interact with the rest of the world, I get a chance to act out of love. The rest of the world could be falling apart (it seems to be doing so lately), but I can choose to respond with love. The future can seem bleak and it won’t matter because faith will always fill my heart with hope. The world isn’t perfect and evil may abound, but life is a gift and God will never abandon us.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
