Reveal Yourself - Do Your Job

A good friend once told me about how part of their prison rehab was practicing to be the same person alone that they were amongst others. I have thought about this for years because it’s the lesson of dharma and voice. Be the person you are all the time, not just sometimes. Of course, we respond with our values and our choices to the cycles of both our lives and the times. But part of our self is fixed in nature, our sameness that has been a golden thread since youth. Our tendencies, temperament or constitution.

Part of my dharma is to teach you to recognize and use your unique voices and creativity in the world at this time. There is no expiration on when you can become more yourself. In the book, The Great Work of Your Life, author and teacher Stephen Cope talks about dharma as the intersection of your gifts and the call of the times.

This means that your natural talents, whether you have cultivated them yet or not, have a place in this world, in your lifetime, and it is your job to figure out where those things come together. When you raise your voice to embolden your gifts, you will change the world.

Nobody’s job is more or less important in my opinion. But it is crucial that we do our best to do our own job, and not the job we inherited or were shamed into. I’m not necessarily talking about your bread and butter job. I’m talking about the work that sets your heart afire.  

It’s your job and your job alone to figure out how your emboldened heart can send it’s message of love into the world today. Maybe you have mentors and guides to also help you suss that out, but either way, no one can take the steps for you. And you must take them or risk never knowing your own potential.

Is that not enough incentive for you? Well then figure out what a good incentive is because it’s your job, your only job as a human to put your gifts to work. What? You say you also have a family and another job? Oh, five other jobs? Well that is part of it too. Living your dharma, working right at the crux of your talent and what is needed in the world, cannot happen in a bubble. For most of us, the work is within the beautiful complicated machine of human culture.

For me, the necessity to serve my family first catalyzed my work out in the world. And it took a long time to get there. You can read about that here. But here I am.

There are so many obstacles that will stop you from moving forward if you let them. You must keep moving forward. Today, I’m giving your permission to do that. Keep on with your work, and offer yourself wholeheartedly to your heart. The work of you is gorgeous. Give yourself to it, add your light to the world.