Make Work Your Play

Let your employment just be your job

Everybody calls it work.

I have to work hard to succeed. Work hard and you’ll be rewarded. The problem is with the word itself. Work. It implies something unpleasant doesn’t it? In physics, the definition of work is:

The energy transferred to or from an object when a force moves it over a distance.

You’re putting your energy into something to move it some distance. Usually you’re doing that for someone else— a boss, a company, an organization. You’re pushing things around for them, with your energy. In exchange you get a paycheck, which is a receipt. It’s currency (current-sea?) in exchange for your energy.

Our modern idea of work and working for money, for someone else, is a product of the industrial revolution. School creates workers to be cogs in the system. That’s where you learn to work. Play is beat out of you early on. Soon it seems silly, until you no longer “fit in.” If you act childlike you’re not taken seriously.

The definition of work is basically pushing the rock up the hill

That’s the Greek myth of Sisyphus. He pushes the rock uphill only to have it roll back down again. Then he rolls it back up the hill, again and again, and again. This is where a lot of people are in life.

You’re lucky if what you’re pushing around is your life’s calling, or you just enjoy what you do. Which is what you should do anyway— enjoy everything you do, or at least try to. (Keep in mind— enjoying everything you do is a key-code to opening the door of good fortune. It’s the same as gratitude for everything you have, even the tough shit. Gratitude for everything unlocks flows of blessings.)

When you enjoy what you do then it’s not work, really, it’s play. You can bring a sense of play to anything you do. It just takes positive imagination, and often humor. If you’re funny then you’re fun. If you’re grateful then you’re great and full. It’s easy to be grateful that you have something to do, that you get paid. If you can enjoy it on top of that, then you’ll magnetically attract a lot blessings.

On the other hand if you hate what you do for money and you curse it actively “I hate this F&@%#< job” that will just keep you stuck. If you’re wanting things to be some other way than they actually are you’re blocking the flow. It is what it is. Acceptance leads to freedom. Gratitude turns a curse into a blessing. After all it’s The One Flow, so why not say yes to it all?

But hey, you still have to make a living, right?

If you can make a living at your life’s calling, your art, or doing what you love then great, but if not then you need a job. I like Joseph Campbell’s take on it:

“Your art is what I would call your work. Your employment is your job.”

I learned this long ago when I was working at Disney in their brand new internet marketing department (yes, that long ago.) I was very agitated because I wanted to be writing and doing creative work, yet I was putting my soul into this job. The problem was my West Point training and my time as an army officer. There you learn to literally give your life being a soldier. It becomes a one pointed identity. So I brought that attitude to this job and it was causing me pain.

I had a vendor named Albin, who built websites for us. We were friends. I was complaining about the job one day and he looked me right in the eyes and said, “It’s just your job, it’s not who you are.” That was a life changer. It was just a job, my employment. I needed to make my passion my work and leave the employment to just being a job. I got fired shortly after so it wasn’t a problem for very long lol.

You must make what you love to do your work.

Flip the script. Make your work your play and if you have a job, do your best but leave it behind at the end of theday. Put your energy into moving what moves you— from the inside out. That’s why you get energized doing work that comes from the soul’s flow. Play comes from the inside out. The soul moves you and then you move the outside world with what moved you. When you do that, you get energized by the flow of the soul. The thing is people are so used to soul-sucking work and the life being drained out of them, they don’t know what it means to be energized by soul-affirming work.

Watch a child at play.

They’re using their imagination and that informs how they’re playing. A child’s play comes from within, like a wellspring and it’s innocent, it’s pure and it’s fun— until adults and society beat it out of them forcing them to “gow up.” It’s important to study that, to model it and to get back to it. The biggest loss is the loss of our innocence.

The challenge is once again and always that subconscious mind which holds all of the early programming. It’s the mind patterns, the inner dialogue, the identity we’ve created for the outside world, which keeps you locked in. It’s all that stuff you picked up after you stopped playing. That’s all down there lurking in the subconscious mind. Those are the structures and thought forms that block you when you try to start playing again. And it’s hard to break those patterns, but it’s not impossible.

When people are unsatisfied, they usually want attention in some way.

People put themselves on display and then worse, on sale. The opposite of play is dis-play. Dis-play— is when you create something with the objective of it being seen. When something is on display it’s for show. It’s the object of attention. You’re trying to get attention by what you display. Isn’t that interesting? Take the word— dis-play. ‘Dis’ negates what follows it: dis-engage- no longer engaging, dis-arm- no longer armed. dis-play, no longer playing. It’s fine to show your work, so long as it is coming from play first, before it’s displayed.

So many are on display first, with social media.

For so many out there, the first consideration is showing off to get a reaction, to get liked or to get a dopamine hit. In order to do that you have to come from the outside in and that leads to a lot of unhappy people.

One thing about this new technological-Aquarian age is that you have to be original and you have to absolutely be self-sensory— meaning you have to come from the inside out. You have to be you. You have to know yourself and sense your soul’s flow. With that you will know how to move in a fast paced, world, overloaded with confusing information.

Screens are the new opium dens. Social media is the new heroin.

People are addicted and constantly looking for a hit. That takes you further away from the whisper of the soul’s flow and knowing who you truly are. The real work is absolutely knowing yourself and coming from the inside out.

That’s where kundalini yoga and meditation come in.

This technology works at the speed of light— the light of your soul. It works fast and efficiently to unburden the subconscious mind pressures so you can actually hear your soul and where it wants you to go next. It takes you inward to speed up your conscious intelligence. That expands your awareness. That gives you wider and wider horizons. This all begets the flow— The One Flow. And when that happens it’s much much easier to en-joy— to be in joy.

When things are light (it’s because you’re lit from within) and you learn to enjoy— to bring in the joy. Then it’s much easier to play. Then you’re simply being you, radiating the light of who you really are. Then there;s nothing to dis-play. It’s all play.

What if Sisyphus enjoyed the struggle?

You still have to push that rock up the hill a bunch of times, only to have it roll back down again. So why not enjoy pushing the rock up the hill? What if Sisyphus enjoyed pushing the rock up the hill. Apparently it was his job.

Albert Camus, the famous French philosopher, wrote an essay called “The Myth of Sisyphus.” In that, he says:

“The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

Imagine yourself happy, doing whatever you’re doing right now. Accept it all. Say yes to it all. Then organize your mind. Organize your energy so that you can take control of your destiny. Make work your play and let your employment just be your job.