Your Life’s Work

The Simple Living Theory of Work

1. Find something you love to do and get paid for it.

2. Live under your means. Spend less then you take home and sock away the rest.

- The Simple Living Guide, Janet Luhrs

We are a lucky generation. In our parent’s days, it was a luxury to have a job and a secure monthly income. Now, work has become more then an income stream. It has become a creative means of expression. Now, we understand that work is a huge part of our lives. We spend most of our waking hours and thoughts on work.

“Love, work and knowledge are the well-springs of our life.”

- Wilhelm Reich, Austrian Psychoanalyst and colleague of Freud

“Caring about our work, liking it, even loving it, seems strange when we see work only as a way to make a living. But when we see work as a way to deepen and enrich all of our experience, each one of us can find this caring within our hearts, and awaken it in those around us, using every aspect of work to learn and grow.”

- Tarthang Tulku, Tibetan Buddhist and Teacher

I have always loved words and art. They are powerful elements of communication. I also love solving the mysteries of how and why things are. One means of work expression for my inquisitive mind and my love for beauty and communication lies in the field of advertising.

Advertising was filled with creativity and brilliant minds trying to understand why things are and how people think. In order to tune in and communicate with others, first you have to know and understand their language and mind frequency.

The field of advertising and marketing filled me with wonder and amazement. But as time progressed, something in me became less full. Soon enough, that part of me was screaming for attention and nourishment. I had forgotten the humanitarian side of me.

When I was a kid, I cried for no apparent reason. My parents thought I was just a deeply disturbed child. Seeing someone in pain, something sad that happened, I would wish for the power to heal and provide. Seeing bald and barren land and I would wish for the power to grow and flourish. This was the time I knew I was connected with everything around me. Now I know, we are all in fact, very much connected with everything around us.

Understanding this side of me I started to seek new means of expression in work.

I seek to fill the part of me that has been left depleting for a little too long.

In life and at work, when we tap into ourselves and understand where we belong, we flow with our inner currents, and therein lies the peace and joy we seek.

“Peace is not about non-action when yet it is about dynamic action. Nature which we call peaceful is dynamic and not still.”

- David Anttony

Work was created to serve man and mankind, not to trap or enslave us.

Work is our means of expression and personal growth.

Work acts as a guide and connects us to others.

Work helps us focus ourselves to be mindful of what we do and build awareness.

Work is a way for us to reconnect and give.

And when everyone focuses on giving, receiving is but the side effect of a life that is filled with compassionate givers.

Imagine a world filled with caring givers, where their whole purpose is to spread as much joy and peace as possible. Life is a cycle and the givers themselves have to be the receivers of giving.

What you focus on expands.

If the world focuses on competition, on taking, on winning – it will expand.

If the world focuses on creating, on giving, on sharing – this will expand also.

Your work is what you choose it to be – work to create or compete, to give or take, to share or fight for the winning position.

Your life’s work is you.

Whether you are an executive, a manager, a business owner, you could be a lawyer, a doctor, a teacher, an accountant or financial planner - your past decisions brought you to your present day and your present day decisions will take you to your future.

It is in your decision that makes the world creative, loving, giving and joy filled or otherwise.

Your life’s work decides for everyone where we will be tomorrow.