Shaping the New Economy - With Your Own Hands

Today I sat here, frustrated that I wasn't getting a call back from a vendor. There are so many stonewalling tactics that people do in the course of their work when they basically don't want to do their job. Dragging their feet. Not answering calls. Refusing to return messages. Being sullen, quiet, stingy, or otherwise having an "attitude". Someone might spend all his time on the phone, sometimes with personal business, sometimes with legitimate work stuff; and sometimes wasting time on low-priority calls when another, more urgent callers try to get through in vain.

It's not necessarily laziness. There is a book out there called The Myth of Laziness, which ostensibly goes into the reasons why laziness doesn't actually exist, and rather why people avoid doing things they don't want to.

Some folks just don't want to be where they are. They may have felt pressured to take a "good" job, a steady job, a solid paycheck to bring home the money -- but they really hate it, and feel stuck and resentful. Or, you may have not have had a clear vision what you wanted at the time, so you quickly took the first position that came along. Perhaps your parents may have told you what subjects they expected you to follow in school, and then your career path naturally followed from there; or you just took a position in what you are good at, not taking into account what you enjoy. Alternately, you may have gotten the standard line with infinite variations, that so many of us have heard: "No one likes their job. Keep your head down and your mouth shut, and don't think that you deserve any better!"

I have a revolutionary recipe for jump-starting this economy, and you may not like it. It might be a little scary or unconventional, or counterintuitive to what you have learned before. It's called: DO WHAT YOU LOVE!

Think about it. Why stay stuck in a job that you don't like, slowing down others' productivity, and bringing down both your and their energy levels? Why ruin your health through anger and stress at being there, and feeling purposeless? You may be biding your time with what you see as financial stability, but you are undercutting your health and life in other ways. True, sometimes we are in transitional situations, biding our time while we figure out our path and where we want to go next. But WHAT IF you could do what you enjoy, AND make even MORE money than you are making now? In this time of flux and upheaval, it is a great gift and even a logical choice to allow yourself that gamble of possibility -- to give it your all, to give Life your best shot in the face of other apparent declining and worsening options.

What are you like when you are doing what you enjoy? Time flies by. You work - really hard! And fast. You are productive! You are happy, peaceful, and contented. You honestly really don't care about anything else. You are a joy to be around. You make other people feel good just by being around you. The fact that you are connected with some kind of inner reservoir inspires others to tap into that as well. "Wow, what do they have that I don't?" "How do they do it?"

If we all do what we love, things will move a lot faster, and we will have more beautiful products and services. This may sound idealistic, but realistically it makes sense. Suspend your judgment and disbelief for a moment, and allow yourself take a fun and silly journey of fantasy with me. For example, in this ideal economy, the only people who will be telemarketers will be those who feel REALLY called to be telemarketers. And they will be SO friendly and good at their job that it will be a DELIGHT to talk to them on the phone, and you will GLADLY interrupt your dinner. They might love doing it so much that they think of a different way to improve their job, and POOF! no more telemarketing anymore. Someone else might be so good at manufacturing TV sets and disc players, and feel so ecstatic about doing it, that they completely reinvent it and make a Blue-Green-Red Ray system that holds 90 times the information of our current systems on invisible discs! And so on.

It begins with a small act of inner courage and quiet.

Others have dared to live their dream, and so can you. It's not fluffy or foofy at all; it can be hard work and an intense, grounded and grounding learning experience. It's real, meaty, and substantial. The first step is to look around and say, "What do I really WANT, right now?!"

Answer it honestly, act from there.