At one of the groups I frequent, we state affirmations for the week (you do know I live in California, right?). Among the list of suggested affirmations are: “There is enough time,” “I trust that I’m right where I’m supposed to be,” and “G-d is my employer.”
It’s this last one that’s been echoing for me this week. Because if G-d is my employer, and my life is my job, I am totally fired.
When I began to frame my life as my job, I began to notice the following trends:
- I don’t show up on time, take breaks whenever I damn well please, and text-bail at the last minute.
- I promise things I don’t deliver, get lost on the internet, and hang out in the break room eating free cake.
- I commit to tasks I don’t complete, or procrastinate, or simply drop and justify why I don’t really need to do them anyway.
- I submit said work eventually and still want full benefits from having completed the shambling work.
- I want the raise, the rewards, the ladder climbing, and I want it all despite the fact that I don’t listen to my boss, do things my own way, and don’t integrate the feedback that is clearly being given me.
So, yeah, I’m hella fired.
Or I would be, if I took my life as seriously as I take my job.
I don’t enjoy the above characteristics of mine. I recently found a 2017 goals list that included “Learn Christmas songs on the piano by Christmas” … it’s also on my goals list for THIS year! (Though I modified it to ONE song.) And as I reflect that it’s nearly July — when do I think I’m gonna learn this stuff? The year is half-way done, and I haven’t even brought out the sheet music.
“Go easy on yourself, yadda yadda…” Yes, I know. Easy does it… BUT DO IT!
It IS easy to accomplish something if you do a little bit at a time. It IS easy to learn a song in one year, or even 6 months, but how terrible will it feel to come to December and still have this song filed as “Incomplete”?
I’ll tell you: As badly as it feels this year.
I’m a crappy employee of my life. It’s avoidance, it’s fear, it’s self-abandonment. AND, yes, I’m working on it. But sometimes, the truth is you just have to show the F up, put in the work, and then you don’t even have to worry about it!
I have a hard time just showing up. For myself.
So, I wonder/hope/intone if thinking about showing up “for G-d,” for my “job,” I can begin to shift my mentality?
Because the truth is, I will not be fired. The consequences of my actions only impact me, my life, and my work. I don’t want to be Lousiest Employee of the Month.
I really do deserve better. I want to earn the coveted parking spot close to the entrance. I want to feel effective and useful and developing. I want G-d to come by my desk, look over my shoulder, and nod with that half-satisfied, half-impressed up-turn of his mouth, and say:
Keep Up the Good Work.
