Your job is to enjoy your life

I've had to speak quite sternly to a couple of dear friends today and explain to them that they're working too hard, need to lighten up and start enjoying their lives. My friends love me.

I often work with artists and creative people who are afraid of doing their real work. Me too. It's really hard.

We live in a society where the way to get anything done or be successful or even earn any money is to "crush it". Action is the magic word. Show some grit! You snooze you lose. All of which, in my humble opinion (and actually long experience) are untrue. The people telling you these things usually have some interest in you working hard (either directly for them, or indirectly by affirming their own overwork).

We are creative beings. That's what we do. We can't help it. When we allow it to happen, stuff flows out of us easily and the exhange of value is obvious - tokens of appreciation come flooding in. When we get picky about what sorts of tokens of appreciation or we get distracted by the hard-work-fairies, it all gets much harder and we think the solution is to crush it even more, but it's not. The solution is counter-intuitive in our world, but it's to give, give something useful and beneficial to your fellows. Don't dream up a company that replaces Bodega's with vending machines. That helps no-one. Dream up a way of helping people, in the way that they're actually asking you to help right now, and then get on with it. Appreciation (including bucks, bitcoin and STEEM) will be yours.

Both my friends are artists, worried that they can't possibly carry on doing the amazing creative work that they're doing and still earn a living. I've seen both of their work. Both of them fill me with joy and excitement. Both of them have shown me that truly anything in this world is possible. Both of them have helped me and many others with their work. I'm proud to know them.

I tell them both, regularly "Your job is to enjoy your life, just do your job."