Compartmentalizing and not attaching to results, regarding my job.

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“Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” Zen Proverb

The process of living, and the work it takes to get to get to a place where we are truly living, is not always easy to see, especially while we are living it.

Wow that sentence was a mouthful.

Let me break it up a bit. We are all living all the time, and there was, nor will there ever be, a time in which we are not perfect exactly where we are. There is a distinct difference however between when we were living each day as solely a means to an end and living each moment as being the end in itself, although we may not recall when a change took place. I recall a time when every day was a bit of a struggle. I would wake up and there would be dread in having to go to work, fear about not having enough and complaints about the people around me and the situations in which I found myself. Very seldom would I be able to wake up with a contentment for what was taking place in my life.

I was able to see this, and I attribute this to my being able to be content today, I was writing what Julia Cameron calls “Morning Pages.” These are journal pages I write every morning, and have been writing, for the past 25 years. Three pages as soon as I wake up, soldiers make their beds, I write three pages, and it could be of anything. There were times that I would just write the phrase “I do not know what to write” over and over until something else came up.

When I started writing these I do recall being very unhappy, I would write about how I wanted to die, how I was not happy with my life, how it was unfair and a whole host of other negative thoughts. I was filled with negativity. I had a job I didn’t like and a future that I could not see turning into anything. I was an addict and I took every opportunity to escape reality I could. It is funny, I am the same person as I was then but things have changed so slowly and without effort that none of that is who I am today.

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