My work is my play

whatamidoing (69)in #work • 7 years ago

I hardly noticed that I've been approaching the 500 followers mark. 500 unique human beings all receiving my posts in their feed, i sure hope many of them notice my posts and I hope all who notice appreciate them.

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I am thrilled that it's becoming harder and harder to differentiate between work and play. Since my desire is to help others, build community and inspire and I'm happy to spend most of my energy on those pursuits. I am beginning to feel that playing is work and working is play. I have also been trying to separate money from my thinking, allowing myself to earn money with whatever I can but not expecting it. This becomes easier as more people understand what I'm about and decide to support me in this process. I am still required to do a few things I don't love but I'm working out the kinks and hopefully in a few months time I'll be completely self sustainable just doing all the things I love, earning money to help people and giving it away to help people just as easily.

If you saw what my days were full with, you might think I was just messing around, having fun, or killing time. But if you know me, you'll know I take this stuff very seriously and see it as my work, my passion, my purpose for being here.

So what have I been busy with his week?

Language education

I can start with what feels most like work and the easiest to receive pay from. I taught 6 hours of one on one English class this week. I enjoy helping students to get out of the bad habits they learn in school and becoming more confident, proactive and passionate about everything they do. I have kick ass study methods that are so simple, many people don't believe they work until they try.

I wish I was financially free to pick my students. I want students who are learning languages out of a true desire to learn, not out of an idea that they should learn, or a desire to get ahead in the rat race.

We have a Spanish self study initiative that meets in the Be Awesome chats as well.
join the chat

Physical therapy

I'm learning a lot about eastern medicine as I work out my own problems. I'm happy to share what I learn with anyone who needs it and can accept ideas and vocabulary of eastern medicine. I don't plan on becoming a true expert on this but I do feel I can help others.

"Life coaching"

This week I talked for a few hours to 2 very overworked individuals about how to improve their situation. Many times when I'm chatting to friends it's more of a “coaching" situation than anything else. I do this quite often. I listen to people and help them to work out solutions to their problems using the wacky ideas that you can find in my steemit blogs. I'm trying to choose these people more carefully, as there needs to be a certain level of synergy for this to occur naturally.

I've considered calling myself a coach and turning this into "my profession” but I feel I'm much more effective when there isn't the expectation that comes with putting a set price on things. I want to offer this as a pay-what-you-want service, but I'm not into marketing and I don't want to make it formal or stifle the friendship that often results.....so I hope that eventually I'll just develop a reputation for being good at this. While I am happy to help people free of charge, I would still like to be able to earn money doing what I love, helping/healing people, and doing it the way I like to do it.

If you need help with anything feel free to come chat with me. I won't be expecting anything but I'm always welcome to monetary gifts if you think I deserve it.

Community Building

A good portion of the rest of my social life is what I see as community building. Two friends from a neighboring city came to visit this week. We spent a long time chatting about the studio/community space I currently spend most of my money on and how I can make it more fun, beneficial to others and self sustainable. I introduced them to my friends and they introduced me to theirs.

I also spent a day outside the city with my therapist going to visit her friends who happen to be well respected female monks. It was a peaceful day where I was able to recharge from nature and the temple setting and meet some people with incredible energy.

When I meet people, I'm kind of in a mindset of "networking", even though I'm not into "networking" at all. Rather than thinking about personal gain, I'm thinking about how I can make the community stronger and help out everyone, myself included. Of course I'll be happy if money comes my way but that's rarely on my mind when I'm out there making friends, and I'm not someone who needs to kill time, I don't have enough of it.

Art and Music

I write songs and hope to inspire with them. I also see art as a way to move things forward, a spiritual endevour which allows us to recognize ourselves as what we were meant to be, creators. I'm working out the kinks on a collection of songs, looking for a chance to record when it comes.

One of my friends who came to visit had an art exhibition this week so I went and finally saw her artwork. I felt happy to really understand her better and I feel that she and her boyfriend are becoming like allies in our life purposes. Her boyfriend is into throat singing and small instruments from various places. We went a friends "retreat space" (for lack of s better word...there's a bar, a restaurant, a pool and a music studio, but it's really relaxed and not too fancy). We jammed for a few hours and enjoyed the space. It was the first time I heard my song with a banjo and a didgeridoo and it sounded amazing.

Writing

Writing is also a kind of art and a tool to inspire and connect. I like writing because it seems to bring all my other pursuits together. Most of this writing happens at steemit now, though I still have short stories that are on patreon. If you pay attention to anything I do on steemit, please pay attention to my "Optimism at the end of the World" posts.

I started a new blog this week called "On Being Awesome". It serves a few purposes.

to apply the ideas in my "Optimism" blog to steemit behavior and happenings.
to share certain notable conversations and ideas that pop up in our “Be Awesome" channel
As I grow my own following, I want to use that following to help new users get more recognition for their hard work so I will feature certain people, especially (but not limited to) members of our Be Awesome community.

So do you think I'm just messing around and having fun?

I am having fun, but it's hard work and I'm very dedicated to letting it serve a greater purpose. I do not believe that anyone should suffer doing things they don't like and when we feel free, we start to enjoy doing things that will benefit the all. When I am able to fully realize my dream of "earning" enough money to live with all "pay-what-you want" pursuits, I will put more time into other projects as well. I want to start organizing "clean the beach" parties, for example. I hope you'll stick around and watch me make these dreams come true...

....or screw that, let's work together to make all our dreams come true!