06.04.12
The Hidden Danger of Career Counseling
We need more artists, especially during change. Take for example career change.
Typically a logical, sequential process of gaining money. But the more we follow this linear path, the less our minds are embracing the unknown. The rush for (and of) perfectionism stifles us. It also kills our sense of humor. It pushes people away, even as we push towards it. We isolate ourselves and hide our humanness. Our weaknesses. Our vulnerabilities.
Hey wait—this sounds great!
Until we see our thinking patterns dwindling. After all, we might spill some ill-fitting and unclean ideas on our pretty veneer.
Enter the artist. The right-brain, the non-conformist who breaks us out of our fossilized thinking.
As our minds cling to the security of a certain goal, something sinister happens. We lose a sense of openness, of possibility. Fixed on an image, we allow it to guide our choices—and our feelings about those choices. And, finally, our view of ourself. Our identity.
Enter the artist: Your sense of humor. It’s spiritual element cajoles you to claim and craft your purpose. Think about it: You wouldn’t have been given this disposition, this weird combo of abilities, if it weren’t for SOME purpose, some reason. Something higher than your ego’s saying, “You studied library science, you ’should’ be a librarian. Congratulations!”
Laughter lofts us above limited thinking. Laughter is a process, a protection, a powerful clarifier.
Laugh and you free your mind to think of other avenues where your skills may be useful.
Laugh and you reflect on all you’ve done with this conglomeration of skills and loves.
Laugh and you see ways to serve a larger world than what exists in your mind and your past failures.
We all want to be perfect. It’s a dream goal, everything will go well for us. But when we finally get it, that this goal is actually bad for us—we win.
