NaBloPoMo Prompt: If You Could Have Any Job

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Today’s NaBloPoMo Prompt is: If you could have any job (and instantly have the training and qualifications to do it) which job would you want? This will come as no surprise to most of you, but the job I would want, the work I’d like to do and get paid for, is writing and teaching.

This in so many ways is what I already do, but the current context, the specific manifestation isn’t an exact fit for how I imagine it, isn’t perfect, is not quite what my heart longs for, what I dream of. I’m not paid for most of the writing I do, and as I am teaching on behalf of a larger entity that doesn’t necessarily share my core values, that activity is restricted and contorted in ways that in turn limit and confuse what I do.

I want to teach what I know, what I love, what I’m trying to learn myself to people who chose to learn with me, are there because of a personal choice, interest, desire, and while I would offer them feedback, I’d never again assign another grade (and if I did, it would be an A for showing up and trying).

Through writing and teaching, in this ideal job, I would help people heal, ease suffering, encourage and inspire health and wellness, wholeheartedness. Together, my students and I would cultivate compassion, courage, and confidence. We would do good work together, work that would center us and then ripple out into the larger world, making things better on a bigger scale.

The training I still want to do this work is to be certified as a yoga and meditation instructor. I might also might train to be a life coach or some other therapeutic practice. In this “job,” this heart/life work, I’d blog, write books and essays, give readings and workshops, offer ecourses, facilitate retreats, make art, and work one on one with people. I’m imagining these people as mostly women who are either attempting to recover, heal, reconnect with their creativity, their heart’s longing and hunger, or those healing from, dealing with grief, loss, change, trauma.

But for now, I continue on with my current paid work, where I’m feeling so overwhelmed I’m considering going in on Saturday to try and catch up, even though I’m coming down with a cold, but where I also get to hang out with some really awesome people.

Wishcasting Wednesday

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from Jamie’s post

What change do you wish for?

A cultural shift from competition to compassion and cooperation. A fundamental change to our national, shared approach to everything: the environment, energy, the economy, healthcare, people’s rights, interaction with other cultures, disaster response, criminal justice, animal welfare, education–everything.

Clean water for every person in the world, (you could help change that).

Improved circumstances for women, every one in the world, (here’s one way you can help with this too).

A general easing of suffering, in myself and in the world.

A focus shift at Colorado State University from attracting and retaining new students, entertaining potential donors and alumni, to serving the existing population, both on campus and in the surrounding community. More specifically, I’d like to see the model shift from growth to sustainability.

Other change I wish for:
aggression –> kindness
scarcity, poverty mentality –> enoughness
inattention, distraction, confusion –> wakefulness, mindful awareness, wisdom
judgement –> equanimity
suffering –> peaceful abiding
“us against them” –> just us, shared human experience
numbness, rejection, resistance –> surrender, open hearts, wakefulness

For myself, I wish for a relationship with food that continues to evolve into one of health and wellness, acceptance of my paid work or an escape plan, and further development of self-care and self-love practices until they become the norm, my full time way of being.

And finally, as Dexter changes from alive and well to whatever comes after, I wish for him the easiest of transitions, the most peaceful passage, letting go.