Flip the Switch and Make Life Fun Again

Have you ever noticed the early riser seems to have a different outlook on life than those that are slow to get out of bed? You will also find most of these people as a rule are happier than the sleepy heads. More often than not this is because they love what they do or they have learned the secret to love what they do. They have found that life is better lived, doing something they enjoy, rather than having to trudge through the day waiting for their eight hour shift to be completed. These people have an enthusiasm that is readily seen in everything they do. They have learned something many never seem to grasp, regardless of their length of life.

I grew up with a father who had his own business. He was a hard task master that did his level best to instill in his boys a great work ethic however; he was very hard to please. As a matter of fact it appeared to be nearly impossible. The three oldest of us worked from the time we were in the fifth grade. We worked after school or on weekends and all summer long. By the time I was in high school I hated working. I didn’t even want to graduate from high school as I knew doing so meant FULL TIME WORK. Seeing as how I felt work was destroying my childhood, I didn’t feel the excitement my fellow students did toward graduating.

After graduating, in spite of trying to fail, it was work as usual; only now instead of part time it was full time. I hated getting up in the morning for it only meant I was now free to do something I hated: WORK. My father’s “Modus Operandi” or MO was to assign more work than one could do in an eight hour day. Therefore, it was not uncommon for our work day to be ten to twelve hours long in order to complete the amount of work assigned. The reason for this was obvious: you had to get better at your craft so you could complete the work assigned in a decent period of time. Therefore, in an effort to minimize the time spent at work and free up more time for myself, I studied how to be better at my craft. I honed in my skills learning how to systemize the work so I could complete it faster and better. Completing the assigned work quicker did in fact grant me the freedom of having some of the day left prior to having to get some sleep to rest up for the next work day.

Still, I hated working. It got to the place where I hated going to sleep for a night of sleep only meant I would awake the next morning just so I could hurry off to work. YUCK. During this period, my life was not pleasant nor was it fun. Life was actually difficult and my attitude made it worse. Soon I was very depressed. I didn’t know why then, but it is quite obvious to me now that my outlook as well as my attitude was causing this depression. My hatred for working affected everything single aspect of my life. Because of this hatred I found myself NOT LOOKING FORWARD to each following day, which made going to sleep difficult, which made getting up in the morning difficult. It even made any time I was able to get away from work difficult, for as soon as my time away was finished I knew that which I hated was coming up, RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER. Something had to change for I felt like I couldn’t go on.

Fortunately, something did change. I changed. It was as easy as flipping a light switch, but it didn’t seem that way at the time. It just so happened during this dark tunnel of depression in my life that I happened to be listening to the radio in my pickup truck when I heard an individual discussing how many people hated their jobs and how hard this made it to go to work or enjoy life at all. He said it was the reason for most of the health problems as well as mental depression. His prescription for solving this problem was for one to learn to love what they were doing. He continued by saying it would take an attitude change as well as setting a goal to become the best one could be at what it was they did for a living. That stuck with me. WHAT I DO FOR A LIVING; FOR A LIVING; FOR A LIVING!!! It wasn’t what I was doing for death yet, that is exactly where I was headed. If I am to live then I need to start heading in the direction of the living.

With my current attitude, I was not headed in the direction of the living. My life compass was set on having an existence of misery, filled with ill health, depression and emotional instability. In other words, I was headed for death. All of a sudden it seemed so simple: the opposite of life was death; the opposite of enjoyment was misery; the opposite of happiness was sorrow. My attitude had me heading in the direction of misery, ill health and sorrow. The culmination of these would surely result in physical death. By changing my attitude as well as setting a goal to make myself the best at what I did, I began to develop a passion. I started to love what I was doing. The next thing you know I was looking forward to getting up in the morning. As a matter of fact, I wanted to be up early so I could get started before everyone else IN HOPES that I would be the first to catch the worm.

All of a sudden my life took on purpose. All of a sudden my life had meaning. I no longer sought to be happy, or try to muster up enthusiasm, for along with monetary compensation these all became by-products of my attitude and the direction I was now heading. Life became less complicated. It was fun once again. I suggest you give it a try!

Best of LUCK as you
Labor Under Correct Knowledge…

Respectfully,

Rick Cox