Work as Art

As often happens, I feel swamped with all the things I want to be doing but can't seem to squeeze into the margins of my day. Writing, stretching, exercise, reading, meditating, cooking, eating... oh yeah, and music. You would think that these are all crucial elements to our days, but frustratingly they are falling out of the buggy. Eating breakfast for instance: We all know that breakfast is important but so is writing. Since I want to attain the habit of keeping a blog, I am sacrificing breakfast for the greater good. What's scary is that I'm just a single kid with few responsibilities, my Mom has juggled and balanced life as a mother, midwife, teacher and spouse for the past 25 years. [sigh]

I've been thinking a lot about work lately, especially as it gobbles the lion's share of my time and youth. Why is it discouraging to do mundane work? How am to get the most out of it? Who am I? (just kidding!) This quote I'm tagging on the end of my entry might seem a little lah-lah land but it's a puzzle piece to think about. Perhaps I'll put it all together in my mind for the next entry.

“The thing about self-sufficiency and simplicity, is that both these ideas are only possible when we begin to appreciate the sacred quality and fulfilling quality of work. A human body is naturally in need of work, so if we stop doing productive work, creative work, then we begin to do unnecessary and unproductive and uncreative work. So working on the garden and making things by hand and seeing it as sacred work is vital- not as work just to earn money or just to keep your body and soul together, but work that is an expression of beauty, an expression of service, an expression of gift.” -from an interview with Satish Kumar