I lost all of my money and it was worth every penny...

This is a long story, life is a long story. 

     I had just quit an unfulfilling job at a furniture store, I worked there the better part of a year. Knowing for the better part of that time that it wasn't for me but I was doing it anyways, eventually I broke and decided not to waste my life.

     It was not long after I left this job that I was extended the opportunity to move to Spokane and work as a Life Insurance agent. I took it. After visiting once I moved over in two weeks time, during that period I studied and passed the tests to be a life insurance agent. I only found a place to live a day before I got there. It was a whirlwind. 

      I started working the very next day after I moved, working hard at memorizing a ten page script word for word, spending countless hours observing agents in the field, studying the various material and programs related to being an agent. It was one of the most intense working times of my life thus far, I worked about 12-14 hours every day. It was a ferocious pace, I felt like I was dying. 

      This frenzied dash to being released into the field took the better part of a month. I hadn't made a penny. I was living off my dwindling savings and they were drying up quick. Rent wasn't stopping. I needed food. I needed fuel. I needed insurance. By the time I was released into the field I was almost broke.

      I was so focused on the money that the pressure was mounting and I couldn't make a sale for the life of me. That was the problem, I was selling to save the life I wanted to live. I was failing and failing through one appointment to the next, crying in my car, screaming in my car, driving from house to house. Doing my best not to break. But I was breaking.

     It all culminated into that day. I woke up with a few thoughts, I have 8 appointments, I have $7 in my bank account, I have a half tank of gas, I haven't eaten in a day and I won't today. Rent is due tomorrow. I might be living in my car tomorrow. So I put on my clothes and set off for my appointments. There is a saying, the hardest time to make a sale is when you need it, and fuck did I need it.

     7 appointments didn't go well at all. I had one left, hardly enough gas to get there. A broken spirit and a battered mind. I drove there anyways. Weak, beaten down I sat behind my wheel, head hung between my outstretched arms. A thought danced through my awareness: Let Go. It's all I could do. I was done trying to sell anyone. I was done trying to make it. I went in there like I already failed, I was just there to educate and help those people.

     The appointment began at 8 p.m., they were incredibly apprehensive and I answered there questions until almost 11 p.m. but at the end of that appointment a miracle happened. They bought. I went from not being able to eat to having my expenses covered for a month. In a single moment I was taught one of the most valuable lessons of my life:

Take care of the people, and the money takes care of itself.

     Before that I had been trying to get fruit without planting a tree. If you want the fruit, cultivate the tree. Let go of the result and engage in the process. This is where success is born, this is where satisfaction is found. The Bhagavad  Gita says "We are entitled to our labors, not our fruits." Ironically though perhaps justly, when we focus on our labors we tend to come up with more fruit than if we chased it directly. 

     Do everything as if you chose it, as if you are doing it because you love it. Do it with passion, with zeal. To create something, to make something perfect. Do your best work, let your life be your art, and what moment is not your life? What moment cannot be art? We gain a far deeper and more profound gift when we relate to life in such a way. We receive an instant refinement and edification of our character. We become better, more whole, more of our best, in every moment that we choose to bring our best forth.

     So engage my friends. Take care of the people. Do your work, for it's own sake. For your sake. 

     Thank you for taking the time to read my work! Much love from your friend, Jonathan!