As a child I remember hearing sayings like, "Idle hands are the devil's play things" and "Many hands make light work." The implied message was that if my hands weren't gainfully employed I was wasting time and headed down an irredeemable path to destruction. So I've always worked hard against my natural inclination toward quiet and meditative endeavors to stay busy. After many years as a local parish minister I began working hard to convince others that quiet prayer and meditation were indeed part of my work as a parish pastor. Now that I am underemployed working about 4 days a month as a hospital chaplain I fight to keep anxiety from creeping into my quiet "unemployed" time. I knit and type to keep my hands busy.
Being underemployed my work has become finding employment which requires much more extroversion of me. It is tiring and tears at my spirit because it requires something that is not natural for me. Yet I keep working at it so I can work at my passions--spiritual companionship and music. Those sayings I heard as a child did not suggest that work could or should be enjoyable. There was no inclusion of passions as foundation for work. How many of those sayings and attitudes about work that we learned as we grew up are hindering how we feel about ourselves as we experience un/underemployment?
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