How are you feeling?
I am grieving the death of George Floyd.
I am grieving the loss of humanity in the moment.
I am grieving the lack of compassion.
There is a time for grief.
Then we should get up and get to work.
I always remind myself of words of Toni Morrison:
“There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal."
However you feel, there is a wisdom in that. A gift for you, and a gift you can share with others, through sharing your experience. Here comes the words of Carrie Fischer in my mind: “Take your broken heart, make it into art”
The day I got the news, I sat down and wrote this. https://www.isiluysal.com/2020/05/28/compassion/
Next day I imagined a better world and wrote this: https://www.isiluysal.com/2020/05/29/your-world/
The other day, I got frustrated and wrote this: https://www.isiluysal.com/2020/05/30/learning-and-struggle/
The next day I got angry and wrote this: https://www.isiluysal.com/2020/06/01/anger-at-work/
Writing is my "go to” to turn my heart into something. What is yours?
As if Toni Morrison’s words were not on my mind, today I met other - very timely - very meaningful words of her:
"When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else."
YES!
That is why I am writing you this.
Through my pain (and pain of my mother, father, grandfather, my ancestors) I came to see the misconceptions we have around the idea of work. We were conditioned to separate work from life, treat work like drudgery, something to be done just to have money so we can take care of our financial needs. This misconception robs us off of our livelihood, of our light, of our impact. We are here to shine our light and we all have different ways that makes our heart light up. When we follow that, we do that, we are fully in this world, we radiate energy and it impacts everyone and everything. Yes, we may not find what it is, yes, we might not earn enough money with it, yes, it might not be something valued by others, our family, our society, but we need to insist on finding and doing this work.
The journey for doing this work will be different for each of us. That’s why I find people’s stories inspiring. That is why I am curious. That is why I have the podcast Unique Careers, Unique Lives.
This week I had a wonderful guest, Liam Anderson who defines his career as "a bowl of spaghetti thrown against the wall.” He adds "If you imagine the possible direction I could go in I've probably been there."
His story reminds me how we can never know if something is good or bad, something that feels bad right now, can show us new opportunities. The important thing is always keeping going.
You can listen to our conversation and read my notes here.
