getting wings to fly....

Thinking about vocations... how we end up doing what we do?

Is it something that happens to us - something pre-determined or it is something we shape? Some people get to it with so much ease , others struggle with it, all their life. I sometimes watch people I know waste their life away because they are waiting for this one significant moment for everything to click into to place , for them to know what they are here to do.

Me ...I just do what is in front of me and I make it a point to do it well. That's how it all started for me and over the years it culminated into this body of knowledge and experience. Looking back, I can say that it was in a way something that happened and in other ways something I shaped. Maybe that's the secret- life plants a seed, we have to water it and look after it and let it bear fruit. I never had the luxury to actually stop and ask if what I was doing ,was my calling. I just did it to pay the bills but i made sure i did a good job of it. I think if one has the choice of being able to question their position, they are in a position of luxury. To question something is a mental excercise that requires one to take stock and review and that usually does not happen unless you are in a comfortable place where you can afford to take that kind of risk to make a change in your career. I am not saying that its not useful, sometimes people change course mid way in their careers to something totally different. I am talking about the 'doing' . To make something happen , we need to put physical action to thought in order fuel into fruition. My theory is that, this is sometimes where people fail. They get so caught up in ideals and they are not present enough in the moment to see the opportunities that lie ahead of them. Its a bit like the stories we hear about monks in training where they have to sweep the floor or do some other menial task like chopping wood or something. And that in the process of doing whatever they are asked to do in the moment fully and completely, they attain enlightenment. I heard a saying once in a workshop I attended, it went something like this : Give 100% , then Give UP ... give the situation up to God/ Universe /your higher self. To do my best and then to surrender to a higher cause fits for me. Its not really about prayer or religion -Its about our own personal journey -when we can lift ourselves to a higher vibration or purpose, we get wings to fly/excel in what we do.

In watching my own career, I know that when i lifted to do a more altruistic mission that involved serving others that my own career took off.... not just chasing money. We all need money and we all have to pay the bills and thats ok as long as that does not become the main focus. I think this is what its about doing /giving our 100% and then giving it up to a higher path /purpose....and keeping that purpose in mind ...keeping it alive.

I can almost feel those moments when i was in sync with my own higher purpose, during those times I was 'floating' ...nothing can discourage me...I had 'wings' to rise above the day to day grind.

I read about a young man who took his life because he found his work very disappointing and he felt imprisoned by it. Reading his views on life, I realised that what he lacked in his life was a higher purpose and this is why he drove himself to his own death. The higher purpose does not have to be religious or spiritual in nature , although some people need this type of grounding...but it needs to serve humanity and we need to be grateful and thankful for the opportunity to serve humanity in anything we do , no matter how small. If your vocation is just a means to an end, then its not really a vocation , its just a job to pay the bills.This I believe is what makes some people stand out and "shine" over others. This is what separates us from ordinary to brilliant.