Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Work Life, Regular Life and the Life In Between

I've come to the basic understanding, most people don't understand me... So allow me to reintroduce myself...



I'm an everyday person, meaning I go to work, pay bills, come home, try to chill drink a few brews and live life.

I don't necessarily hate my job and I don't necessarily like my job, I more tolerate my job than anything. My job isn't bad considering, I am a new hire trainer for a company that shall remain nameless in NC. I like my job because of the different people I get to meet and work with on a daily basis, I dislike my job because of the social and political bullshit that goes on within a corporation. I also don't believe I was meant to be a worker bee, by that I mean make someone else money and work hard for them while they kick back and collect off my ideas and labor and stuff.



For instance, I am at work right now blogging. Mostly because when I'm not training there isn't a lot to do, I mean we follow up with people in their first 30, 60 and 90 days and we look for trends but I mean seriously, nothing major. With work life however, you have to fall in line with the culture to get by because we gotta work to eat and gotta eat to live. Now some people think that you only keep it real if you stay the same in every situation you encounter, I beg to differ because if that was the case we wouldn't survive. There is a reason only the strong survive and that reason is because only the strong adapts to their environment to ensure survival. For work life I have to put on my work face. In my opinion the people who keep it most real are the ones who can take elements of themselves and apply it to all situations they face.



Which brings me to my next topic, regular life. In regular life I think I am normal in an abnormal kind of way. I'm a dad, though not the dad I want to be, I'm a son, a brother, a friend, a lover, an uncle. I'm a free thinker which in my opinion means that I do not pass judgement on someone who doesn't believe what I believe or whose belief I don't entirely understand. I just let things be what they will be. In regular life, I make just enough money to save up to be broke, I have just enough faith to believe in the unbelieveable and I just try to get better every minute of every day. Regular life is hard especially when we have nothing that makes us happy. If we are always doing what someone thinks we are supposed to do or what makes everyone else happy you will be miserable, I know I've done it for the better part of my life. In regular life you have to deal with shit, some dumb shit, some bullshit and some shit that doesn't make any sense. The one thing about regular life is that regular life gets boring quick, fast and in a hurry. Regular life is just that, regular. I mean every now and again something exciting happens but not because of anything we do in regular life. This type of life is safe and we do everything as we are "supposed" to do it.

So because we live most of our lives regularly, a lot of people deal with it by creating an alternate life, or as I like to call it, the life in between. This life in between can be any number of things. My life in between is the life of a poet/emcee. This life in between is very delicate because you must learn to balance it between work life and regular life. Neglect it too much and it is lost, put too much time into it, it may become a hobby, part of regular life if you don't grow with it. This in between life can make your wildest dreams come true but if you aren't truly prepared to do what it takes it will be your worst nightmare. In order to balance the life in between with your other lives patience is most certainly a virtue. Most people only want their life in between to be at certain times, i.e. the weekend which is all well and good but for those of us who want our life in between to be the forefront of what we do, there is a certain amount of sacrifice, dedication, humility, humbleness, work and rejection we must take to change it from a part of our life to the focus of our life. As an artist I feel like you should be willing to continue your art whether another person ever listens, reads, looks or whatnot at your art ever again. Would you make music if no one listened? Would you write poems if no one read? Would you paint or sculpt if no one looked at your art? Don't get me wrong to be successful you must be able to adapt or change to get to the level of success you want to be but don't allow another to determine what success means to you.

In closing, I will leave you with a thought that has stuck with me since college.
"In order to get something you've never had before, you must be willing to do something you've never done before." What are you doing with your life?

Peace J