Food for Thought Fridays - Fun & How Do You Combine Two Worlds?

Posted by Kevin Boon. Follow me on Twitter.

This week has been an exciting week for personal growth with some fascinating insights that have helped me to understand more clearly how to get what I want and what holds me back. Sometimes the most important pieces are not explainable until after you go through the experience and understand the teaching.

Here are some tidbits from my learning for the week:

Listening to our Instincts & Having Fun

Last Sunday afternoon I was planning to do some writing and preparation for the week but the writing was feeling heavy. Suddenly this thought came over me to go skating. What a great idea! I checked out the website of the local ice rink and noticed they had public skating that afternoon. I got in my car, drove to the rink, sharpened my skates and for two hours was in a place of bliss and total enjoyment.

Image from Miskan on Flickr

The funny thing was I hadn’t been skating for 10 years and I realized I missed skating (and playing hockey) so much. So where did that thought come from? I have no idea. What I do know is as adults we tend to get locked in to our responsibilities to earn money, focus on our careers, raise families and we forget to have fun. Life becomes all work and no play.

Why hadn’t I been skating for 10 years? Because I forgot what it was like to be a kid and have fun.

The Lesson: Having fun and doing the things you love is important; especially for adults.

Your State of Mind & Feeling is Important

My good friend Deb (who I met on Twitter) reminded me of one of the important lessons in life. Our quality of life depends on how we feel.

She said always go for what feels good. I listened to her message and the skating example is one the outcomes but I applied that idea to my whole week. What I discovered is when you go for the good feeling you really do feel good.

Could it be that simple?

How do you Combine Two Worlds?

For years I have been fascinated with the human mind and in my own personal and spiritual growth. From my blog I talk about meditation, inner growth and how to find balance. At the same time I work in the world of business and technology where I find the overall experience to be out of touch with the personal or spiritual side of life.

Although most executives put on a good face and talk about balance for the media in my experience in the boardroom life balance seems secondary. Workaholism abounds and in my observation people seem stressed and frustrated with their careers.

I have always felt the need to wear two hats. One is my corporate self that talks about profit, ROI, value and uses all the good corporate words that business people like to hear. The second is more real side that wants balance, harmony, cooperation, fun and quality relationships.

I am starting to see the bigger picture that as we create balance in our lives it is critical to feel you can combine all aspects of yourself into your career. This is a work in progress for me and I don’t have all the answers but I do want to find a way to combine the two and not feel I have to wear two hats.

As I look around the business world I know there are people who are balancing their real passions with their careers and I am looking forward to figuring this out for myself.

Comments

[Debra]

What a great post, Kevin! Seriously.

I can feel the aha moments clicking for you...and the best part is I can feel the JOY that comes right along with them. :0)

Now maybe I'm biased, as I'm the Happy Girl from Twitter who says, "always go for what feels good"...

But I'm just thinking; living a life of joy and discovering your work within that joy is *much* preferred to half enjoying some mundane work that eats up a majority of our precious time...just so we can try to squeeze some fun in somewhere.

Life is meant to be JOY-FULL. Period.

I love your observation that "when you go for the good feeling, you really do feel good." ...and then you pose, "Could it be that simple?"

I'm exclaiming a resounding YES!

If life is meant to be joyful, and it is...then it's also meant to be simple! (By the way, Joy can be found in the simplest of things.)

Can you imagine difficult joy? Challenging joy? Hard Joy? Kind of funny, right? Like oil and water, they just don't mix.

The observations you point out about our current 'work a day' world and the seeming disconnect between our passions and the way we live our lives are spot on.

There used to be a time when people thought the more hats a person could wear, the more diversely talented they must be.

I believe we're now in a time when we recognize that wearing too many hats just makes us look funny. (Besides making us tired, stressed, confused, out of touch w/our life's joy, etc.) :0)

We have one head for a reason. One head~one hat. One that fits perfectly and shows off our uniqueness. One hat that allows us to share our most aligned gifts and talents in a way that brings joy to ourselves and others (AND...brings us the prosperity we deserve!)

Imagine our world if all of us committed to wearing our one perfect hat. The world would be filled with people doing what they love...now that's a lot of JOY!

Kevin, your post will touch something in the hearts of many.

As you shine and reflect your courage and commitment to living a life where your passions and expressions are in sync...you give others permission to do the same.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. Please continue to do so as your voice is a match for many and your actions give others the desire to live the joy of their truth as well.

Oh...and thanks for the mention; that was very nice. :0)

In Harmony... Debra (@debsoul on Twitter)