Article # 10 – Work

When does work become more than labor?

Elaine and I are grandparents. We have the good fortune to be geographically and emotionally close to our 8-year-old grandson. This last week we were participants in a neighborhood public school’s tradition which goes back years. The music teacher at his school sets aside an evening to collect the school choir members and members of the community who want to slalom through the neighborhood of the elementary school singing Christmas carols. Learning the songs are part of her curriculum of teaching.
The picture nearby doesn’t tell the full story …but it is close. It is a bit out of focus because I was shivering in the single digit temps. We gathered at 5:45 sharp, outside the front door of the school building. The sun had already set pulling the temperatures with it. Add a little bit of wind and oh my!
There has been a great deal of ink written in multiple places about how educators are backing up to the pay window warehousing kids in buildings until they can move them along to the next grade level and on to the next school building. If those writers would invest an hour with this music educator they would write something of a different tune altogether.
An hour later, still outside, in front of the school, frigid kids and parents cupped hot chocolate and celebrated the event together as a school community. Somehow this worker teaching children, has found a job which likely became a career and then a profession. But I took note of the event watching someone operate as if this were her God given calling. A lesser person would have looked at the weather forecast and simply sent a communication into the community, EVENT CANCELLED. Not this teacher, no sir. Bundle up we are caroling on December 16, 2022. I have an idea with that decision another stone paver was hammered into place becoming part of her soul roadmap.
When you look at your world of work through your lens of life do you see a brick paver of your soul roadmap being hammered into place? Do you think it could ever happen? Come along we will guide you on doing precisely that. Here is a secret. It makes life even more rewarding when your soul roadmap contains pavers of passion because they are your calling.