2/21/13—Doing What You Love

Today's Draw Classic*: The Nine of Wands from the Silver Era Tarot. Are you frustrated because there's a snag in your plans? Do you feel like it's a sign to jump ship? Or are you determined to see things through?

The Nine of Wands is a card of the determined, but road weary, warrior. Along the path of our plans, we've had victories and setbacks and here we are near the end, determined to move on, but wary of how many more setbacks we can manage.

I think one of the hardest things about pursing a new course is staying motivated when things don't go our way…when we get that rejection letter or a promising prospect drops out of sight. Personally I believe that if you feel you're swimming upstream all the time, that it's time to get out. That the universe doesn't make things that hard for us.

But there are two codicils to that. One is that there's a HUGE gray area between smooth sailing and swimming upstream. And it's sometimes very difficult to determine where you are in all of that. And the second codicil is that your attitude plays a role. Some people see every bump in the road as a gaping pothole, while others barely notice. So it's difficult to be objective when you're talking about something that means a lot to you.

But here's a solution that kicks any bump or pothole in the arse—only do what you love and only do it for the love of it. That doesn't mean you won't be disappointed, but it does mean you'll always have a payoff. Sure, it's hard when you're hoping to turn this love into a career and you don't end up making money off it. But make money off something else. When you take something you love and make your satisfaction dependent on its ability to perform financially, then you've essentially transformed it into a chore. You've choked the joy out of it.

Many people love to write, for example. I'm one of them, of course. And for the past 25 years I've carved a nice life out of my writing. I had the gift of knowing what I wanted to do long before college and being naïve enough to pursue it as if I could make money out of it. For the first couple of years of my career in advertising, I didn't even write. I worked as a support person in a creative department. I received many rejections during that time and when I finally did get a job as a writer, it was a sucky job…haha.

I was 7 years into my career before I got a writing job in an advertising agency. I was underpaid every step of the way. And at the ten-year mark of my career, I was feeling the love sucked out of my love by the spinnings of corporate wheels, so I made a radical decision to become a freelancer. Not for money. But because I loved this career so much and wasn't getting what I wanted from it. I expected, actually, to take a pay cut. But that wasn't the case.  It took me 10 years of hard work to get to a "good place" in my career. And I can say, looking back, it didn't feel like 10 years and even though I suffered many rejections and inequities during that time, I was never daunted. Most people who, after a decade in a career, were still just scraping to get by would give up. It never occurred to me. And all the stumbling blocks led me to my true calling as a consultant.

The point is that if it were ever about money, I wouldn't be where I am today. I'd be working, possibly as an account executive or a marketing director and writing as a hobby. Or maybe I'd be bitter about the sucky writer on my team and take it out on them by editing their work heavily…haha. But the point is, if I had judged my career based on what it was paying off in dollars, I never would have made it through that first 10 years. And there were times in that 10 years that I was strictly limited by my budget, having no discretionary income to speak of at all. But it didn't matter because I loved what I did.

Things born of love, nurtured in love and cared for with love give love in return. And there's meaning to the saying "love conquers all" in this situation, too. I won't say that everyone can make a living do what they love because I don't know that to be true. But I do know that you can always do what you love. And you can always make a living elsewhere. But if you do what you love for any reason other than love, you will lose that love.  

*Taken from a post originally written on 5/11/11

11/1/12—Getting Over That Final Hump

Today's Draw: Nine of Wands from the Dreaming Way Tarot. Do you have a personal, intimate relationship with yourself right now? Do you feel like all your energy is fed-by (and given to) external sources? What's the "final hump" you need to get past in order to achieve holistic success in your life?

The Nine of Wands is about gathering up that final bit of energy so you can make one last push toward your goal. The older I get, the more I feel like Nine of Wands moments come more often...haha. Exhausted and fatigued, you push through to eventual success. 

I look back, say, 15 years and think I had so much more energy. But when I look at all I do now, I'm pretty sure I do more now than I did then. I did more socializing then, sure. But I do more work now. And I continue to take more on. Recently I've heard about a couple of different groups that want me to deliver my tarot and psychic development classes, for example. And I'm interested in doing more of that because I do enjoy teaching. 

On the other hand, it takes a long time to develop these classes. So if they're interested in something I haven't taught yet, it takes a lot of time to come up with that stuff, which I usually do in the evenings. And then there's the time teaching them takes from my weekends. This year I've been teaching and developing three new classes a month on average. So I find myself working sometimes a couple/few months straight without a weekend off. 

Meanwhile, my REAL job as a freelance copywriter is moving along busily. And I do these blogs six days a week (though I posted repeats all week this week...haha...sorry). Put it all together and I can see why I feel like I'm always in a Nine of Wands moment. And the thing is, there's none of it I would willingly give up. I enjoy my job and it brings me money. I enjoy teaching. And I like the discipline and daily deep thought of writing this blog. 

I was talking to another woman earlier today and we were talking about how, at our tender, advanced ages (haha), we're also less amenable to putting up with BS along the way. Stuff I would go along with fifteen years ago—and even five years ago—is just one stone too many for this camel's back. So there are certain colleagues I won't work with, types of friends I won't hang with and situations I won't get myself into. 

Like I said, though, I socialized more 15 years ago. I exercised more 15 years ago. So I'm looking for a solution that works for me today...something to give more balance to my life. I need the exercise. There's no denying that. But I also need something to capture my spirit and that's been elusive lately. I still meditate a lot, but I think I'm looking for something more along the line of my solo trips to the river. 

The Nine of Wands can be about using your very last bit of energy, and that's usually how it's intended. But I think it can also be a Bat-signal in the sky saying, "find something other than work and dogs to fuel your life, Tierney". I hate being at this place, because I know better than to get lost in the haze. But in my enthusiasm with the tarot stuff and the book writing and blog writing over the past couple of years—and now my new little doggie—I see that I've set aside some piece of me that takes me off the hamster wheel of outwardly focused (and fed) energy. 

I don't regret taking on more, because it's all purpose-built for my present and future. I've got a great product coming out for tarotists in the spring, I teach some kick-ass classes, I have an enormous library of spiritual and personal insights from two years of doing this and I've even test-marketed my next book project to you in posts I made earlier this year. But my mistake was in doing it at the cost of my "me" time, instead of in addition to it. 

For me, I guess, that's the final, Nine of Wands hump I need to get over in order to achieve success in my life—finding that way to do all the cool things I get to do on a daily basis without losing myself in it. No matter who you are or what you do, your personal, intimate relationship with yourself is something you should never lose sight of. 

2/16/12—Channeling Your Inner Doofus

NOTE: I have changed words and images in this entry from the original posting because it was getting countless hits a day from people looking for a certain cartoon character that was mentioned here. It occurred to me that many may be children and, since many serious religious and spiritual topics are discussed here, I thought it best if I removed all mentions of the cartoon character.

Today's Draw: The Nine of Wands from the Simply Deep Tarot. What's the last really stupid or clumsy thing you've done? When did it happen? And did you see it coming and did it anyway?

For some reason, this image amused me. It reminds me of those "d'oh" moments where you do something really stupid—something you should know better than to do—but you don't realize how stupid it was until the consequences come. Maybe this guy happened upon this fire innocently, but today it's looking to me like he thought it was a good idea to light the big log on fire and, once the blaze got really going, realized it would also consume the two bendy straw logs and probably all the others in its wake.

It's possible I may do something like that at least once every day...haha. Today I had my dogs on their leashes when I remembered to get my phone out of the charger. So my living room is kind of narrow and I have a long coffee table and the phone is at the far end of the coffee table and there's a vase of flowers at the near end. So there I am with the dogs on their leashes and they go down one side of the coffee table and I go down the other and, of course, the flowers get toppled and water goes everywhere. I saw it coming and did it anyway.

I had another incident on the way home from our trip to the park where I almost hit another car that either came out of nowhere or I didn't see it because I had a rear view mirror full of dogs. When I finally saw the car, the lady inside was making kissy faces at my dogs and waving at them, oblivious to the fact that I almost plowed right into her without seeing her. Or maybe she was waving at me to stop and had her lips pursed in fear. Either way, she almost died waving.

Which gets me wondering...how many stupid things do I do in a day that I don't even register? I mean, stuff like this is forgotten as quickly as it happens. How many doofus moments do we have in a day anyway? In my insular little freelance world I'm not even exposed to general society on a regular basis. And I had two incidents I can remember today. When you think about it, it's a wonder life is as safe as it is with as many "near misses" as we have in a day.

So just for fun, make yourself conscious of this and see what happens. See how many times you do something clumsy, narrowly escape serious injury or otherwise create an unintentional nuisance. And for bonus fun, come back here and share your stories with the rest of us. :)