How do enlightened people keep going to work instead of renouncing everything?

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When I was younger I had a very mercenary relationship with the working world. Getting fired was fun because it meant I was setting out on a new adventure.

At various points I considered building a tiny house, or living in a van, but when push came to shove that lifestyle just wasn’t for me. Long years in my twenties were spent living with my father and being what he considered spoiled and selfish, and in some ways I was.

In other ways, I was granting him the opportunity for redemption from his sordid past. There were very good reasons for my mom to throw him out when I was 5. Reasons I got to experience when I moved in with him at 22.

But this story isn’t about the relationship between myself and my father, it’s about the relationship between me and work.

You see, I didn’t know it at the time, but I was born enlightened and remain so to this day. I took an enlightened perspective to working that I didn’t know was enlightened until I took care to study and contemplate the process of spirituality.

The part about my father that I wove in has elements of unexamined enlightenment written all over it. There are multiple perspectives at play here, that I was selfish and spoiled by using my father for free rent, and my core understanding, that never really changed but I reexamined from time to time, about the opportunity for redemption that I was offering.

We’re coming around to the topic of work soon, I promise!

Unexamined enlightenment means that the situations I find myself in, I can muddle my way through using my own inborn resources, abilities, and connection with God, to drive out an outcome that is beneficial for all involved. I just didn’t know how or why that was, I could only find out later, after an incredibly intense mystical journey that I still need to write an adequate story about. You can read a barely-legible account of it here: Vincent Guidry's post in Spiritual Musings

With that groundwork laid, this is how it applies to work.

My jobs are all wonderful opportunities for me to find and define myself, surrender to God to allow Him to do the work that I just can’t be bothered to do, and amazing lessons in how human beings can collect together and coordinate. Enlightenment is at play at every step in the process, in every interaction I have, teaching me things, showing me things.

There is nothing like a job to teach you the juncture of focus and surrender. When I would get a job in my twenties, I focused intensely on what I could focus on, then would usually end up losing the job because I couldn’t consider the job the way that my bosses wanted me to consider it.

I had a job at a UPS Store once and got fired for lack of conscientiousness. My boss, a kindly old Jew who shared my interests in science fiction and such, I never would have thought would have fired me, but he was quite compassionate about it and I left with a smile on my face.

I had a job as a systems engineer and line support for a small IT outsourcing outfit. I was fired when I had negative interactions with two of my employer’s friends, potential clients of ours. Our existing clients loved me but the owner didn’t feel like he could trust me. Their senior engineer at the time is a dear friend of mine and got me the job. He taught me so much about the mindset behind IT and what respect and trust mean. Didn’t keep me from getting fired, I managed that all on my own.

It wasn’t until some time after the intense mystical experience I talked about earlier when I decided to start a career as a web developer. It took some six months to fully process and then circumstances and the desire for a stable career led me to develop the capacity to focus on one thing and not let threads burn out just because I don’t see a use for them anymore.

I do not set an alarm clock. I just wake up and go to work. I love going to work, these days it’s a thirty minute walk to the office. My work is interesting and engaging. I spent ten years figuring out who I was and what I’m best suited for and now I’m reaping those benefits.

If you are enlightened then joyful presence is at the heart of everything you do. It was true for me before my mystical conclusion to my extended adolescence, and it remained true afterward.