Where True Happiness Lives - Jason E. Smith, IAAP

I came across a lovely post at the On Being blog which is a reminder of the importance of Doing What You Love and Loving What You Do. The writer, Gary James, a bartender, discusses his movement away from writing poetry -- an activity he has always experienced as a gift -- and his recognition of his need to reclaim writing as central to his life.

How easy it can be for us to get off track! How easy to lose connection with those activities we love to do, with the many callings of our lives, with our own souls. Our callings can be fragile, easily eclipsed by the traffic and the crowds of life. I was particularly moved in the piece by James' statement that, "in trying to please everyone else, I have gone away from the very thing that I truly love."

This is the great challenge - to hold to our true path in the face of the ideas and needs that we perceive those around us seem to have for us. Mary Oliver describes this tension beautifully at the beginning of her poem The Journey:

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--

This is not to say that the needs of others have no claim on us. But, rather, to suggest that we can better respond to those needs from a place of self-possession and personal fulfillment. When we "try to please everyone else," we usually end up pleasing no one. Least of all, our deepest self.

The original post is well worth the read and can be found here:http://www.onbeing.org/blog/doing-what-you-love-and-loving-what-you-do/5601

What about you? What are the gifts or callings that have been neglected in your life? What might you do to begin to make room for these gifts in your life again?

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