Meaning

Work has put me in an introspective mood. I was very quiet today and several people asked me what was wrong. Well, nothing was wrong. I just have come to the conclusion that the less I say the more work I do and the better things go. I care about the people I work with. I want good things for them but it seems that I want those things more than they do. I care about my job and will give 100% everyday that I step through those doors. I will admit, I used to give 110% but I know now that the job I have does not require 110%. In fact, most days, from most people, it requires about 50%. I can’t compromise myself just because I am working with mediocrity but I also don’t have to spend valuable energy that can be focused on my writing. Today I did my job, I was polite but not chatty and I went home. Work is work. Writing is my life and the thing that I love.

So, this is what I learned this week. It is so important to have a reason to wake up in the morning and come home at night. I know some people that have nothing to go home to so they find ways to avoid the haunting halls of their own houses. They spend their lives immersed in jobs they do not love because they don’t know what else to do. I believe it is imperative to have something that you love immensely and are ready to sacrifice everything for. If you don’t have that, I don’t know what drives you and I am afraid for your wellbeing.

In Lives Lived the characters that don’t know themselves do not have something that they love. They may love someone but that is totally different than loving something that is yours. I love people but before I loved anyone I loved to write. I know that the man I marry will be the one that makes me feel the way I feel when I sit in this room and write. I have loved a few men but none of them in that complete way. That is how I know the difference. The love I feel for writing surpasses the love I have for other things in my life. It is a higher level of love and it stands apart from other feelings.

I have the next four days to write and think. I did not ask for these days off but I believe, after some fretting, that God has granted me with the very thing that I’ve been dreaming of. I will admit the day before I saw my work schedule upon waking I hoped for two days off in a row. Well, God gave me that and more. I think it is clear that Lives Lived is the most important thing in my life. Until I can say that I am a writer and nothing else I am unfulfilled. I have a reason to get up in the morning and come home at night. All I have to do is follow that reason and life will always have meaning.