Not Your Average Cup of Joe

Quote of the day: “Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need.” – Frederick Buechner

I’m batting two-for-two the past two days at work. This is a rare occasion for me. What I mean by that sport reference is I’ve remained centered in who I am while at work. This usually comes in waves and lasts for a few moments, not days.

Today didn’t start out so easy though. I found it much more difficult to wake up this morning then I did yesterday. I honestly don’t know yet how to break through that awful morning wake-up feel. When I was in the shower I tried to brainstorm ideas, but the only thought I had was to buy myself really good organic coffee and use its delicious taste as the motivation for me to wake up. The coffee idea probably came from my desperate need to get out of the shower and GET a cup of coffee, but regardless, it is still all that I can think of.

My vocation surely doesn’t excite me enough to want to get up and I’ve tried time and time again to use the idea of “my morning time” to get me up early, but that still doesn’t work. When my body pleads, “Just a few more minutes, please!” it doesn’t matter how fulfilling it feels to journal, read or meditate. My mind isn’t awake enough to override my body. So, maybe, just maybe, the thought of good, tasty, savory coffee will get me out of bed with more ease because my mind doesn’t need to think too hard to remind my body how great it feels to have a good cup of coffee.

Like so many of us, I dragged myself out of bed and persevered through the sleep comma I was in. My morning time was, of course, cut short due to that extra few minutes of sleeping, which led to many more minutes. I felt my irritable Self infiltrate the morning hour, but I still managed to drum up some joy through quickly reading a passage in one of my most favorite books, “Communion with God,” by Neale Donald Walsch. It said something along the lines of, and I’m paraphrasing here, what life can be like when we are living consciously: “Experiences are then something we choose to do, not have. They are actions, not reactions. Life then becomes what you create it to be, not accepted as so.”

I felt a shift. I never thought of experiences as an action we choose to do. I’ve always thought of choices as an action and the experience of that choice as the reaction. I like it though.

Per the quote of the day, I don’t know where my greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need, which is why I don’t know yet what my vocation is, but I do know that I experienced (chosen action) great joy connecting with a colleague this morning who is on his own spiritual journey. He felt overwhelmed in his life, lost and paralyzed to move forward, all because he had segregated significant aspects of his life and himself. Basically, he had put into separate boxes his different selves and was feeling lost. Sound familiar? I shared with him my willingness to integrate my own life, inviting him to do the same. That way, we can find some solid footing (our Self), and it will be much easier to make a decision on how to move forward because we’ll be able to see things more clearly.

I do know that I continuously experience pure contentment, fulfillment and effortlessness when I am talking, thinking, reading or writing about the experience of trying to live consciously, in communion with our best Self.

If anyone knows how that joy of mine can fill a world need, then maybe I could actually find a vocation. :)