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Job Satisfaction?

I have been reading Looking Inward: How to Find Calm in a Chaotic World by Swami Purnachaitanya and it is one of the best books on meditation that I have read. It is written in a very straightforward way. I came across it in a charity shop for £1.

One paragraph in particular made a lot of sense to me. I often wish that I could just make a living from art and not have to work. This is probably how anyone creative feels, but Purnachaitanya writes that, 

'...if you keep on changing or rejecting job opportunities because you are waiting for that perfect dream job, you are not being realistic, and honestly, not very practical. After all, the purpose of a job is to earn money to support yourself and those dependent on you financially. If that's the case, you need to make this your main criteria and not whether it is all that you dreamed of doing with your life. If the main purpose of a job is that you enjoy it all the time, then it is not a job but a hobby. This does not mean that you need to be miserable though because, like I said, it is possible to get real job satisfaction. But the key there is that you are already satisfied, irrespective of the job.'

So many self help books tell you to do what you love and the universe will look after the rest. Purnachaitanya seems to be saying that this is not realistic, but by practicing meditation you can be satisfied regardless of the job. I personally feel that work is what you make of it. The more you put in, the more you get out of it. I often operate on a fake it till I make it basis and this seems to work for me. Whether the answer is doing what you love or meditating regularly I don't know.

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