Do what you love and LOVE what you do.

I would like to end this week by imparting a life-changing quote / excerpt by Dr. Michael Colgan of the Colgan Institute of Canada.

Life is for Joy
(Excerpt from Dr Colgan’s forthcoming book Quiet Mind: Journey of Joy)
31 January 2013 

Our goal herein is progress along the journey of joy. Financial gain and material goods, for which many trade their lives, are trivial by comparison. Despite endless commercial urging, do not confuse standard of living with quality of life. 

Though we spend most of our lives working for it, money is only a means to develop joy within yourself, your family, and those around you. Many studies show that, beyond a certain minimum, which varies with the basic costs of food and shelter in different places, more money does not lead to greater joy.
 

As marketing guru Michael S Clouse says, if you dread Mondays and long for Fridays, ask the person you see in the mirror what they think they are doing with their life. If you are saddened by your work, you have only one life in which to change it, and you must lead the change. Joyless work is only for the defeated. Smart people play. 

Two examples. The Dalai Lama has enormous material wealth and high public position, yet lives in joy and love as a simple monk. Mahatma Gandhi had no material wealth, and never held a public position, and lived in joy and love as a simple monk. Both are revered leaders worldwide because, despite material things or lack of them, they embody a life of joy, and spread love to everyone around them.
 

It’s not easy. Each step you try to take outside your usual emotional zone is like giving up a teddy bear. Negative emotional memories assume the shapes of many demons before you can eliminate them. To reach the morning, you have to pass the shadows of the night.

It takes more than psychological counseling, soothing herbal baths, head tapping, or positive affirmations such as the popular, “I must, I must be humorous”. But many people will try anything except change their life. They are so strongly conditioned by our commercial system to believe that a joyful life first requires the busy accomplishment of material goals. They see success and happiness as always round the next corner, each turn soon impatiently discarded for the next and the next and the next.
 

The "Quest for the Pyramids" from the Book, The Alchemist

Winnie the Pooh sums it up nicely in Benjamin Hoff’s, Tao of Pooh: “They burn their toast a lot.” Their minds are never quiet enough to realize that it is the process, the journey, in which joy resides. They are so busy running after things they fail to live the precious gift of life. As the Dalai Lama says: “They die having never really lived.”

Nevertheless, habitually joyful people are no more special nor gifted than most. The difference is that they realized that life is for joy, and that they could change, and that they had to make the changes in themselves. They realized that the only emotions that yield constant joy are love and compassion, and laughter their steadfast companion. And they began to practice them -- every day.

AA Milne’s effortlessly calm and joyful Winnie the Pooh.
“But you could be doing something Important.”
“I am”, said Pooh.
“Oh? Doing what?”
“Listening to the ducks.”