To be or... to do

Sometimes, asking for advice just happens to deflect responsibility. Sometimes, it happens out of cluelessness. Sometimes, it doesn't happen at all, instead, the hodge-podge of ancient unsolicited advice just crawls out of the crevices of my memory.

As I spend already quite some time on this planet, I had plenty of times being "unemployed". Most of them didn't bother me much, as I had enough resources to pay my bills and have some fun. This time, I came full circle. Just like before I started working, I'm broke af. Unlike then, there's no one I know to help me out, and not only my age limits how I can potentially make some coin again. Dole isn't an option, and after having spend some time homeless the possibility to lose the roof over my head doesn't entice me at all.

After some rather unpleasant way of earning money, I nearly processed the PTSD related to it and I'm willing to move into the next adventure. How to go about it still puzzles me. Initially, I envisaged offering my services as healer and teacher, promoting these with workshops I held. I underestimated the difficulties to find participants for workshops using traditional ways of advertising. While I gave up fairly soon, it just prevented me from spending more money than I made, and limited my frustration about the downward trend of interest I noticed. I did, and I failed.

Besides this, I spend lots of time to offer my artwork on the street, at least while the weather permitted it. I had moderate success, by far not enough to pay bills, but I thoroughly enjoyed most of the time I spend like this. I was, and I didn't really succeed.

As I grew up in a protestant family, I have no trouble with protestant work ethics. In most jobs I provided those who paid with good value for money, and usually didn't shy away from putting the hard yards in if required. While I pride myself for my professional attitude, I rarely had occupations worthy of putting my heart in. Mostly I felt like a prostitute despite not giving sexual services.

I spend more time in the same place with my last job, mainly because I wanted to believe to work at a place which is part of the solution, not the problem. However, that was just part of the potential of this company, definitively part of its marketing strategy, but not the reality of day to day proceedings. I did as much as I could, but I had to realise that image was more important than facts.

I listened quite a bit to Jordan Peterson lately, and he would advise to do, just like many others prescribing hard work as necessity to succeed. I require only moderate "success", as my material desires have decreased, paying my bills without prostituting myself seems well achievable. All I want is to maintain my integrity.

From a spiritual point of view, the advice was distinctly to be. I undeniably feel attracted to this approach, but I struggle to develop sufficient trust, despite affirmation from my subconscious. I do no longer want to "make things happen", as this led only to ego-driven plans in the past. As I don't notice any divine inspiration, I'd rather trust in a lucky turn of events. Currently, this sounds more like a recipe for shit hitting the fan.

One lesson I surely learned from my last job is that running at full speed without direction is tiring, frustrating and unsustainable. May patience and trust open the next door.