clues in quotes for career bliss


I know and you know that not everyone thinks that career bliss is real nor possible. And in your own pursuits, you’ll feel knocked by the expectations and limitations that others place on themselves. The deal in this dynamic is this: If I can’t do it/see it/have it [it = career bliss] – then really, why should you?

For more on that, here’s this TEDtalk.

And then there are the people who have lived their own career bliss.

Rather than tell you how you should and should not live your life, their messages of influence on how to create job bliss are both:

1. Cryptic … because in creating career bliss you are working with the unknown rather than working to make the unknown known; and

2. Clear … as in oriented towards the light and lucid because there is room for you to occupy the space that you are asked to with your own unique purpose.

This is because (as anyone that has ever lived their own career bliss can attest), your life needs to become precious and worthwhile to you.

They know that it’s not wise to interfere, but rather to facilitate and honor you getting in touch with your own answers and inborn wisdom.

Just as they needed to learn how to do that for themselves in this climate of humans wanting influence over one another to the detriment of each other’s being. And as the tale goes, where you are the hero in your own life, you ready for a journey that is both inner and outer in nature whether you like it or not or intended to or not.

So now, here’s a (cryptic and clear) step for your path – Read the wisdom bites collected from the quotes below and then do whatever you must to find the clues in your own life that reference the resonances that you feel in their words. In other words, experience what words choose you. Whether it’s one single word in a quote, a couple strung together, a line or the whole sha-bang.

(Highly recommended idea for increased usefulness – Print these quotes out and highlight what resonates to reflect, journal or have coffee with a friend to compare notes on your thoughts around these treasure maps for career bliss.)

begin …

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it! It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.

– Martha Graham

….

The place you are called to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

– Richard Bolles (What Colour is your Parachute)

….

The Master in the art of making a living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labour and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his religion. He hardly knows which is which, he simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him, he is always doing both.”

– Zen and the Art of Making a Living

….

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.”

– Carl Jung

….

…if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t even know they were going to be.”

– Joseph Campbell

….

When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds. Your mind transforms limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties, and talents become alive and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”

– Patanjali (The Yoga Sutra’s)

….

Each of us has a place in this world. Taking that place, I have come to feel, is our real job as human beings. We are not generic people, we are individuals, and when we appreciate that fact completely and allow ourselves to embrace it and grow into it fully we see that taking our place in this world is the one thing that gives us a sense of ultimate fulfillment.

Bantu tribesmen, it is said, sneak into the rooms of their children as they sleep and whisper in their ears, ‘Become who you are.’ ”

– Norman Fischer, “Taking Our Places”

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