the bonvivant gets down to business

“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion.

He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both.”

-James A. Michener

I’ve been writing this blog for about a year and a half now. For those of you who’ve been reading for a while, you know that I mainly rant and ramble about: food, music, culture, and occasionally, society and spirituality. In a word – life. Or the ‘good life’, as I define it.

It’s occurred to me, though, that there’s one pretty big chunk of life in general and my life in particular that never  gets touched on this blog.

Work.

Well, I shouldn’t say never. One of the more popular posts I’ve written was one in which I counted down the days before I left my last job. I thought it would be fun to share the idiosyncracies of my daily work life, since  that we all know and hate.

Apparently, I hit a nerve. Something about that clearly resonated with every one of you, because I never got so many comments on your own experiences (and frustrations) with work and the workplace. Case in point: 

I am so envious of you!!!! I’ve been looking for a new job for 8 months now — and it is a slow and painful process. I feel trapped in hell. I can’t wait for the day when I can quit.

I’m jealous. My job is sucking the life right out of me and I can’t seem to find anything else at the moment. It might better if I go on commission; I might double what I’m currently making. However, money isn’t everything, and if I could find a job that I love doing I’d take it even if it doesn’t pay much.

I’m quitting my job for a better Federal job between now and springtime, and I’m only giving these fools three days notice. When they lay people off (company terminology is surplus), the lay-off list comes out on Wednesday to let people know they will be out of a job on Friday. So when I do that, and they beef, I’ll tell them I’m just following company policy.

I am sooo happy 4 u! I needed that motivation as I am still on the plantat…. I mean the same dead end job….

 

Most of us spend more hours of every day working than doing anything else – including sleeping – but it seems to be the one part of our lives that we get the least amount of satisfaction or enjoyment out of. It seems that work – or at least the way we are used to experiencing work -presents the largest barrier to our ability to live the ’good life’. Work is either not providing the financial benefit that we need to acquire material comforts, or it’s not providing the emotional or mental satisfaction that we need to feel fulfilled.

If we could make our work – whether it’s working for ourselves or for someone else – as enjoyable as our play, wouldn’t our lives be so much more…good? It’s a question I’m interested in answering, because I think I’m not the only one who could benefit from knowing how to make that possible.

I’ve decided to add a new category to the blog for all things ‘work’. In this category, you can expect to see commentary, books, articles, links, and my own personal opinions on how to make work more fulfilling, productive, rewarding, and fun. Hopefully, we’ll all learn a little from it, and move that much closer to integrating our work with the rest of our lives.

Before I go, I’d like to pose a question as my first act of research.

Are there any of you out there that truly enjoy your work? And it doesn’t count if you say, ”I  like my work, but, or with the exception of….”

I want to hear from people who can say that they enjoy and are fulfilled by what they do for a living.

For those of you who can’t say that wholheheartedly:

What is it about your current work situation that is less than ideal? Is it the environment, the people, the pay, the commute, the crappy coffee in the breakroom?

Inquiring minds….

 

happy monday,

k

what’s twitter and why you should (or shouldn’t) bother

Imagine this. You arrive at a bustling, networking event and casually walk into the center of the very large, very crowded room. All around you, groups of varying sizes are engaged in lively conversation. From where you stand, you can catch snippets of every discussion, and a little smidgen of what each person is saying. That guy over in the corner is the promoter for that hot new nightclub downtown, and he’s offering all of his group free admission this Friday. The young lady a few feet away from him is happily sharing small business marketing advice and is giving a referral to a friend of hers who provides half-off discounts to the best restaurants in the city. The guy standing next to her isn’t saying as much as everyone else, but when he does, it’s the wittiest / funniest thing you’ve ever heard! And the woman on the far side of the room looks like Erykah Badu. No, wait…she IS Erykah Badu! As you stand there and listen some more, hundreds of other useful tidbits buzz by your ears. It’s hard to keep up with them all and you’re worried that you’ll never have enough time to meet and connect with all of the cool, funny, interesting, and helpful people in front of you. Plus, you’ve got valuable information and witty repartee of your own to share… but how are you ever going to be able to engage with everyone?

Just then, Rod Serling magically appears at your side, and says, “There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call ‘The Twitter Zone’. ”

Suddenly, the room goes dead silent. Everything begins moving in slow motion. When the next person opens their mouth to speak, you see their words appear written in a little bubble over their head with a time and date stamp on the end of it. You – and everyone else in the room – can go around and literally cherry-pick out of the air those bits of conversation that are interesting to you and put them in your book of acquaintances. Every time you open your book, you’ll have a growing history of everything those people said since you picked them. Those you don’t pick, won’t show up in the book. And because of the time / date stamp, you can see how long ago the words were said. Likewise, anyone who’s put your name in their book, will be able to see everything you’ve said. “Wow” you think to yourself, “This is pretty friggin’ amazing!” “No,” says Rod Serling, “This. Is Twitter.”

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