Dress Rehearsal

When we glance over our shoulder at our history we see ourselves playacting as children, rehearsing what we’d always known we wanted to be.  Role-playing our future…

The child who, for hours on end, shapes pies and cakes from mud or soft Play-Doh…and thrives today in the bakery business… another wields paintbrush and fills the space of her paper with every color of the rainbow… and now directs an art studio.

The boy who bangs on pots and pans in his mother’s kitchen and grows up to be a drummer… the one who plays G.I. Joe in the backyard and joins the military as an adult… the girl who sings along with her record player and becomes a recording artist herself…

Not everyone makes a living at what they love doing - even though they may live to do it  – but they still recognize their passions and pursuits as a call in life.    

 "Your profession is not what brings home your paycheck.  Your profession is what you were put on earth to do. With such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling."

               ~ Vincent Van Gogh

Last week I asked the question here, “What did you want to be when you grew up?”   Most responses revealed that what we imagined ourselves to be as children is what we still are today.

Jessica did not become an astronaut, but she still seeks to explore the unknown and soar to heights unseen, metaphysically speaking. 

Orea did not become a nurse in a cool white dress and cap… or a nun.   But she’s still on the spiritual healing path.  

Kathy’s dream of living in a little stone cottage surrounded by hollyhocks and craggy rocks by the edge of a wild, windy sea never played out, but today she’s a writer who can live there - or anywhere she pleases - in her imagination.         

Corinne wanted be a housewife and writer.   And my response was… “It sounds like we are married to a house.”   Plus it makes us sound desperate!   So then we decide to come up with a better term: domestic engineer.   

Today Corinne is proud to announce that she is a recent graduate of June Cleaver College and is living her dream.   Give it up for the one and only Corinne Rodrigues!    

Chris is also following his bliss.  From a young age he’s known he wanted to be in the book industry.  And this is exactly what he’s doing today: reading for a living.  But he’s also a writer who is confident that the money will follow.       

Many of us are writers who blog.  Some publish in literary anthologies, journals, magazines, and some are authors of books.   But few of us have quit our day jobs yet.    

The vast majority of those who write are either little known

or unknown hoping to become little known  ~ Brian Doyle

So, given Van Gogh’s statement above that our profession is not necessarily our bread and butter, but rather a passion and a call in life, what is yours? 

What do you do out of pure joy?  And would continue to do if you never received a penny?