“To flourish is to bloom, to grow, to do the opposite of languish.” – Noelle Oxenhandler
This week a friend told me that she had found her perfect job. Having had a ridiculous week at work, the idea of a perfect job intrigued me. What exactly would be the perfect job for me? When I typed “perfect job” into a Google search, I got 98,800,000 hits. It seems that there are a lot of people out there looking for the same thing. So if so many people are searching, is there really any such thing as the perfect job?
Every personality test I have ever taken has given me the same results. I would make a good teacher or writer or minister or counselor or consultant. They also say I am happiest working with people, and would do best in a leadership role. Now, I have been working for the last few years hoping that I could leave it all behind and write books for a living. But if I am happiest working with people, and need to lead, what if I got my wish and ended up solitary and miserable? What if I can’t hack it as a writer simply because I lack the personality for it?
So what, then, would be my perfect job? What would I be happiest doing?
My perfect job:
- Working for myself or within a partnership with someone else who I love and respect.
- Writing books.
- Running inspiring workshops with small groups of women/ girls.
- Meeting and working with inspiring people on a regular basis, from all over the world.
- Making at least £45,000 a year (after tax – ha!)
- Having flexible hours and locations so that I could visit family and friends whenever I want.
- Having a personal assistant who I trust.
- Having a art/ writing materials budget.
- Every day to include creativity, inspiration and beauty.
I almost wrote that it sounded impossible, but I stopped myself. It’s my perfect job and I will not settle for anything less – giggle.
What is your perfect job?
I’m full today. I’m full of potential and possibility. I am full of gratitude for unexpected time given and serious November weather. I am full of fire and energy to get on with my business of creation. I am full of doubts and fears about my place in that business. I am full of inspiration, but am greedily gulping more down, sitting with sites and books and oracles open on the table in front of me, unable to pick just one. I am full of the beauty of an orange pumpkin and gale force winds and sunshine streaming in a perfect square on the floor. I am full of despair at the loss of time and the confusion between believing that the world is unfolding as it should and believing that there is power in wishing for something. I am full of love and pride for friends as their lives expand in creative and powerful ways. I am full of envy for people who have been able to create their life as they want it. I want them to teach me their secret. I am full of joy that I am beginning to create my own life as I want it, and intrigued because even my own secret evades me. Maybe theirs evades them too. I am full of delicious food and just one tiny spoonful of Nutella. I am full of a rich, ancient, deep yearning for connection and knowledge: for women around a fire and a drumming that comes from my own heart. I am full of wild spinning and serious sitting. I am full of years of creativity that has been stifled, paintings that haven’t been painted, and dances that haven’t been danced. I am full of joy for the words that I have written and the books that will be birthed by me. I am full of love for my family, and full of hope that I will soon be back in the land of my birth. I am full of so much today that it feels like my skin is the only thing keeping me contained in this space. I am full of the whispers of my wild woman and today I am not afraid. 