Is what you do meaningful?

detail from my painting "World of Traceable Ghosts"

I was just recently interviewed by a woman who is doing some reasearch for a possible book, she is studying the meaningfulness of work to different individuals in different fields. It's too long to go into here but we touched on somethings that I wanted to pass on in my blog in case it was helpful at all to anyone. One of the first things she asked me was did I find what I did meaningful and why... and why I decided to do what I do. So here is a bit of what I think on the matter and why I think it's important to find your job in life....not necessarily a JOB in the sense of the word of employment but your task, mission and place.  So let's skip back about three years to when I was still working at a not so very nice place using my physical body and strength to do work that eventually got me injured.

Why I decided to do what I do?

I decided to choose the path of ART because it was in me as much as the air in my lungs, the blood in my veins. When I did Art I was happy, content and at peace. When I did not do art I was unhappy, unsatisfied, lacking and felt sad. It was quite obvious I was miserable to be doing something other than what was INSIDE ME. For a lot of artists and myself included it is a compulsion to create, you just absolutely must. YOU MUST and there's no getting around it. 

I felt expendable as a drone bee. I could just as easily have died and they would have replaced me with the next drone bee in line for the position at old job. Who wants to feel like they are expendable? I don't. I want to feel absolutely needed and important and one of a kind at what I do. I have that with art. I don't have that with hauling someones boxes around while they ask me 30 times a day if I'm doing all the tasks assigned to me. No thanks. Queen Bee of my hive thank you very much.

I wasn't adding at all to the world except sadness. Yep. I'm a firm believer if you are unhappy at your job you are no doubt putting that negative energy right back into the world. I started to despise customers, not thinking of them as people but as annoyances (some of them WERE!) but it was a strange disconnect with my human side to be serving others who were rude and unhappy- it was contagious and I was rude and unhappy back sometimes. It was when I saw all the devastation of Katrina happening on tv and people rushing to go help and aid them that I felt this pull to go help as well. But I couldn't. I was stuck at this job. I couldn't say "Hey Boss, theres some people in the world I need to go help so I'll be back in a week." No, you go on business as usual style like all is well with the world... it's all about making the money machines turn after all. I HATED THAT and my heart hated that. I wasn't helping anyone. I wasn't happy. What was I adding to the world at all?

I knew what I could add to the world to make it a more beautiful place. My Art. I was a creator. A producer. I was compelled. It was in me. It was my gift. Making art because it made me happy AND others happy. People loved my work, it inspired them and motivated them to do their art too?

Really? I could do that? I could touch and connect with people in that way?

What a gift! I'm glad I stopped hiding it away in a basement!

Why is it meaningful to me to create art? For all those reasons. I am needed in the world now. I am needed and people need to feel needed. I don't feel like a solitary miserable person floating around in a black hole somewhere anymore...I feel connected and plugged in to the world and all the people in it.

That is necessary as a human, you need others...you do not survive in a vacuum.

So in a nutshell not everyone is an artist or creator but everyone has in them something- some gift to add to the world. When you aren't in tune with that and aren't freely giving of that gift as often as possible your heart will hurt a little, you will feel a longing... a void you aren't sure how to fill. That is the symptom and you know what the cure is.

Find it. It is there.