Dare to Pause...
Do you ever take a moment during your workday to reflect on the incredible things you get to do?
Kurt Vonnegut has a quote that perfectly encapsulates the gratitude I feel for being able to live and work in this age:
“And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’”
In these moments, I feel a deep sense of gratitude for the opportunity to move my fingers around a keyboard for hours and call that my work. Admittedly, this may sound dreadful to some, but I enjoy it. I enjoy other parts of my work too:
- Meeting new people who are curious and want to solve problems
- Learning about new innovations that I can bring into my consulting practice
- Struggling against challenging problems precisely because they are difficult
Reaching and maintaining this place of gratitude isn’t always easy. Throughout my career, there have been days when I’ve felt grateful. Other days I’ve felt frustration and discontent at moments with what I was doing. On these days it was truly a struggle to practice gratitude.
And yet, the moments when I struggled to find gratitude were often some of the best. They became tools to help me discover what I truly want out of life.
If you quiet your mind long enough, these moments can allow you to tap into your thoughts and emotions in order to ask the right questions.
Am I enjoying life, my work, what I’m doing? Do I find my existence meaningful? Am I helping others? Am I making a difference? What changes do I need to make to get more meaning out of life?
These can be uncomfortable questions because they force us to be present and sit with ourselves. If you’ve done any sort of meditation or mindfulness exercises, you know how uncomfortable it can be to sit with yourself at times.
But here’s a little secret: If you can notice your thoughts and emotions and be present with them, if you can be honest with yourself about who you want to be and what you want out of life, and if you lean into the discomfort in this space and push through it, you will emerge with a sense of clarity, and possibly even great joy.
This may seem like a strange post to some. I’m not selling anything, nor do I have any real agenda other than curiosity and wonder about how we as humans could experience the world. I believe the best possible world is one where everyone is on the path to following their curiosities and trusting their inner self to guide them. Gratitude for what we have can play a huge role in cultivating a fulfilling and meaningful life.
My hope is that one day we can all do work that we find meaningful and fulfilling. I hope we can all dare to pause and find moments of gratitude and joy throughout our day.
Maybe, just maybe, today, if you take the time to reflect and notice what you are doing, you might think to yourself, If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.