Just because you’re good at a job doesn’t mean you’re meant to do that job forever. Living a purposeful life where your work is a vocation requires taking chances and starting over.
Thank you for inviting me along on your journey (sorry for the overused word). I think your writing is wonderful and I'm very glad that you've decided to make it your HOME.
Thank you, Alice. I think life always wants that for us. But until we can figure out what those terms are, it provides us a structure (a box). And that's good. Sometimes we figure out what we want by determining what we don't want.
This piece really struck a chord with me. Thank you. It has inspired me to look at my remaining years differently. To have the strength and courage to find a new perspective and follow a new path. To simply enjoy the freedom of living life as it unfolds. Peace and blessings my friend.
Thank for your honesty, vulnerability, and, yes, courage, Jan. Or maybe “courage” is really a trueness to self, a radical self respect - the willingness to eschew the comfortably familiar and step into the unknown. A heroine’s journey. Brava, my friend! I am in awe.
Oh Claudia, thank you! You have been an inspiration to me. You jumped into writing well before me, giving up a safe and comfortable position, back when I was still trying to make another glass slipper fit on my wide foot. Thank you for your unwavering support.
The struggle you describe is very real to me. I'm happy to say I came out the other end with a new career, a purpose, and no money, but hey, 2 out of 3 ain't bad. Just stay tuned to the voice inside you and keep searching, and you'll find what you need.
Thank you, Don. I appreciate your encouragement. It sounds like you, too, have found writing to be a vocation, and hey, jobs pay in currency but vocations pay dividends far greater. Having the support of you and other writers is invaluable.
Ooooh... I loved this, Jan. So much about it... It gives me a feeling of your spirit connecting to the spirit of the times for so many of us! We are honing ourselves...and you are reflecting that back to us as you keep honing this amazing blog. I am grateful, and soooo inspired by you :))
Apr 18, 2022·edited Apr 18, 2022Liked by Jan Peppler, PhD
Lots of resonance for me here. Your journey reminds me of a favorite passage from Thoreau's Walden: "I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!"
of course, it's always been interesting to me that he really did not live in the woods quite as separated from society as he leads us to believe in Walden. He went to town quite often, had dinner with friends. Which is to say, his path to the pond was not quite as worn as his path to town. As much as he loved his woods experiment, the ruts of tradition and conformity brought him back to town repeatedly and, in the end, for good.
To apply this to occupation... hmmm.... If I have had an occupational path that I returned to again and again, where there is a path as well as a rut of tradition, perhaps even conformity, I would say it is one of service. To be of service. To serve humanity in some way. Which is why I must find that connection in writing - otherwise it is merely vanity and ego and that will not keep me engaged.
Thank you for inviting me along on your journey (sorry for the overused word). I think your writing is wonderful and I'm very glad that you've decided to make it your HOME.
Thank you, Susie. I so appreciate your companionship on this writing path!
Thank you for providing so much inspiration. You are living your life on your terms.
Thank you, Alice. I think life always wants that for us. But until we can figure out what those terms are, it provides us a structure (a box). And that's good. Sometimes we figure out what we want by determining what we don't want.
Dear Jan,
This piece really struck a chord with me. Thank you. It has inspired me to look at my remaining years differently. To have the strength and courage to find a new perspective and follow a new path. To simply enjoy the freedom of living life as it unfolds. Peace and blessings my friend.
oh Mary, thank you! I think of YOU as so courageous, so filled with adventure, and such an inspiration to me and others. Love to you, my friend.
Enjoy. Every. Day.
Yes, yes, yes. Every moment. Moment by moment. This is a sacrament. This is Grace.
Thank for your honesty, vulnerability, and, yes, courage, Jan. Or maybe “courage” is really a trueness to self, a radical self respect - the willingness to eschew the comfortably familiar and step into the unknown. A heroine’s journey. Brava, my friend! I am in awe.
Oh Claudia, thank you! You have been an inspiration to me. You jumped into writing well before me, giving up a safe and comfortable position, back when I was still trying to make another glass slipper fit on my wide foot. Thank you for your unwavering support.
The struggle you describe is very real to me. I'm happy to say I came out the other end with a new career, a purpose, and no money, but hey, 2 out of 3 ain't bad. Just stay tuned to the voice inside you and keep searching, and you'll find what you need.
Thank you, Don. I appreciate your encouragement. It sounds like you, too, have found writing to be a vocation, and hey, jobs pay in currency but vocations pay dividends far greater. Having the support of you and other writers is invaluable.
Ooooh... I loved this, Jan. So much about it... It gives me a feeling of your spirit connecting to the spirit of the times for so many of us! We are honing ourselves...and you are reflecting that back to us as you keep honing this amazing blog. I am grateful, and soooo inspired by you :))
Thank you, Elizabeth. Thank you! Your words fill my heart, as does your friendship.
Lots of resonance for me here. Your journey reminds me of a favorite passage from Thoreau's Walden: "I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!"
wonderful quote
of course, it's always been interesting to me that he really did not live in the woods quite as separated from society as he leads us to believe in Walden. He went to town quite often, had dinner with friends. Which is to say, his path to the pond was not quite as worn as his path to town. As much as he loved his woods experiment, the ruts of tradition and conformity brought him back to town repeatedly and, in the end, for good.
To apply this to occupation... hmmm.... If I have had an occupational path that I returned to again and again, where there is a path as well as a rut of tradition, perhaps even conformity, I would say it is one of service. To be of service. To serve humanity in some way. Which is why I must find that connection in writing - otherwise it is merely vanity and ego and that will not keep me engaged.