"The secret of success is making your vocation your vacation." Mark Twain I find myself thinking often about the things that I choose to do...how I spend my time, how I spend my money, and with whom I share my time.
I had lunch with a great friend this past Friday and we indirectly spoke of this very subject. She asked me about my past job outside of Houston TX. This was a job in my field of study (recreation and park adm.) and I guess I was fairly good at what I was doing. In the four years I was there I was promoted two times. I knew it was time to walk away when I no longer felt challenged, and I found myself getting irritable and impatient far too often. The eight hours that I spent at my job felt like "all work and not play" (and it was even in the field of recreation !) and I found myself daydreaming about quitting my job and doing something totally different.
My job simply was not feeding my spirit. And this is something that is very important to me. I refuse to spend a third of my life doing something that I don't feel passionate about. It's been nearly three years since I walked away from my job and I haven't regretted it one single moment. I get to spend lots of time learning, practicing and teaching the thing that most feeds my spirit most...yoga.
I look at pictures like the one above and I'm happy for the choices I've made. That picture was taken at a workshop that I taught at the hospital in Hazard, KY, which is the area I'm from. I've had the fortunate experience to teach yoga to all different types of people and all ages. Next month I'll travel to Mexico and co-lead a yoga retreat in Tulum, Mexico. A fun little story about Tulum...I discovered this magical little place four years ago through the magazine Budget Living. It was their very first issue and they featured Tulum for the travel section. I was so drawn to this place that I clipped the article out and saved it. I told Andy that I couldn't wait to visit this place someday. That someday will be next month, July 14.
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2 comments:
Oh, this is just one more word of encouragement to take that leap of faith from the wretchedly boring and safe, to the possibly fantastic and uncertain.
Your success and courage inspire me. :)
Thanks Jaime! When I'm debating the big things in life, I always ask myself "What's the worst that could happen?" When I left my job in TX, the answer was "I can always get a job doing something to earn some money, even if it's part-time." In fact, this is what I did while I pursued learning how to teach yoga.
In opening the studio, the answer was "So I'll sign a lease for a year and see if people come to do yoga. If they do perfect! If they don't...well it's only a year of my life, not that big of a deal." And I knew that I would be spending a year at least doing something that I completely wanted to do.
I'll be coming up to that one year lease in a couple months. Thanks to people like yourself,I'll be resigning the lease and looking for a larger space before too long. Yippy!
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