Idea for You: You’ve Already Bloomed
We all have this fear that we won’t live our lives to our full potential. What if I don’t make it through law school? What if I get fired from my job? What if I don’t live up to my Dad’s expectations? I too have my fears that I might fall short. Will I ever bloom into the person that I want to be?
But a lesson I heard recently from Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh has helped me to change my thinking on this. Hanh poses the question: What if we already are the person who we want to become?
The next time you’re in a park, look closely at a flower. What was the flower before it bloomed? A stem. And before that? A seed in the soil. And where did the seed come from? A flower. It’s a continuum.
If you look at the flower long enough, you’ll see that the flower and the seed are one in the same. There is no difference except the labels that we put on them. The flower is the seed. The seed is the flower.
You too are like the flower. Who you were in the past, who you are now and who you will become is already in you. There is nothing to fear. You’ve already bloomed.
Career Hack: Find Your Community
A little over a year ago I escaped the 9:00 – 5:00 workday for a remote job. At first, I was ecstatic. No more withering away under the bright office lights on Friday afternoon. No more answering to managers that kept a time card. I remember thinking “I’m free!”
But over the coming months I realized that remote work had its own challenges. Isolation. Loneliness. Demotivation. While the office culture felt like a prison at times, it also felt like a community. It had people to laugh with, learn from and grow with. What had I done? I thought.
Miraculously, nine months into my remote work, my company got an office in a co-working space in New York called Primary, owned by Patreon supporter Lisa Skye Hain. When I arrived, I immediately felt home. The office was buzzing with entrepreneurs, workout classes and positive energy. Over the last six months it’s reawakened my spirit and motivation. I feel alive again.
I tell this story to stress the importance of finding the right work environment for you. The internet is full of people who make remote work sound like the holy grail but is it really as good as they say it is? Not in my experience.
Find your community. Find a place that’ll help you grow. I hope you get lucky like I did.
Consider This: Impermanence Fosters Hope
It’s undeniable. Our lives are constantly changing. We grow older. We change jobs. We get married and divorced. Tomorrow will never be like yesterday no matter how hard we try to force it. To some people this perpetual change can be unnerving. Why can’t things be like they’ve always been? Why can’t our lives be stable?
But instead of running from this impermanence we must embrace it. Knowing that things are impermanent is the only thing that gives us hope when we’re going through a difficult situation. Impermanence reassures us that things will get better.
When’s the last time you struggled? What did you cling onto to make it through? It’s hope for change. Impermanence is your lifeline.
Quote of the Week:
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” – Theodore Roosevelt
