In Paradise, it sometimes rains. Paradise is still there. Rain is temporary. One is as necessary as the other. Both provide a worthwhile picture; but it’s up to us to see past the rain.

The hard reality is that the source of income may not dovetail with the scope of life we enjoy; but, both are equally important.

As our traditional work disappears or becomes minimalized, confusion can prevail. However, that can also mean new opportunity or at least new ways at looking at the things we do to generate income.

Scope of Life

Getting back to our original statement, let’s focus for a moment on the scope of life. What are the things that get our juices going? Is it music? playing baseball? drawing? working on cars? building things? with wood? gardening?

If I had to write down my life enjoyments 30 years ago, it would be different than today. Today I enjoy Blogging, so that’s what I do. Had no idea about blogging fifteen years ago.For me, it didn’t exist. Part of liking something, often has to do with learning and doing. Having sort of grown into blogging, and encouraged by positive feedback, something keeps me at it. Why, not sure. But that, I pay attention to.

What I do for income is not blogging, but making a craft product which we sell. It is not one of the things on my list as a life scope enjoyment, but having learned the process, it’s satisfying. The photography I do is way past the discouragement part. Now it’s fun. The teaching is also something I’ve learned I need to do for myself.

In short, doing what we love is the most important thing. Next, comes turning that into a source of income. Energies are strongest there. If what we love is not a source of income, the next best thing is to temporarily work at things within that scope that provide income. Do we require short term recognition, medium, or long. If it’s short term, we wouldn’t be a good candidate for cancer research career. First comes our own discovery.

Why do we like what we like?

For us Travel is near the top of our list. Maybe it’s because we started doing it early – getting married in France. It’s a hard thing to define. It’s more than just getting away. We like to wander in other cultures, and, where we did it on our own before, we’re a little older now and have discovered riverboat cruising to get into interesting places. The key is to identify our needs and follow those roads.

Life becomes the journey –

• What we do.
• What provides income.

Sometimes one becomes the other and that’s great. Carol works part time at the book store of a local College because she loves doing it, and she also gets paid for it.

One Job or many?

I recall a while back my niece, also a college graduate, working five part-time jobs and snow boarding in between from her home in Park City, UT. One of her part-time jobs was teaching Snow Boarding. Now married she raises her children and continues boarding.

The key is to find out what our aptitudes are, our natural talents. For me, it took a day and

half testing at the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation. Before that, before JORF, I sold Cutlery Direct while in college, worked in France, worked at a home office as an Administrative Assistant – something I should never have been doing I later learned. After that when the division was closed, I sold photocopiers while in a management training program, did Commercial Real Estate and taught RE Counseling, and taught 1031 Tax Deferred Exchanging to brokers for CE Credits. Everything changed when I learned about myself and began my career in Photography, which I still do today.

Sources of Income

Sources of income are everywhere. In the local newspaper they are listed. On the internet they are listed. On a whim I googled the Fish & Wildlife Service,  then clicked on Jobs, then on Fish & Wildlife Jobs Currently Advertised. Here is a sampling of what I found…
Congressional Legislative Affairs Specialist at salary from $77,490 to $119,794 / yr
Fish & Wildlife Biologist from $59,246 – $92,316 per yer two locations in VA
Park Ranger $25,731-$33,350   Austeel, Tex
Student Trainee for $21.17 – $33.66 per hr   Hadley, Mass
Forensic Scientist – Recent Graduate $48,968-$92,316   Ashland OR

Total of 85 jobs with listing or experience or schooling required by the Dept. of Interior. Am I missing something here? This is only one place I checked. Do we not care or are we too cared for?

Life can take many turns. However, I think the What we enjoy often has to come first. I’m reminded of the title of the book Do what you Love, the Money will follow. That may be a bit oversimplified; but, it is moving  in the right direction.

In the process let’s find out what our Actual Reality is vs Virtual Reality. It may be nice to dream in VR, but our place is in the real world. Our real job is to bring who we are along in a happy and satisfying manner.

The future? Ours to explore. “Learning to call it as we see it. Honest, Honorable and Fair.” as Martin Baron, Washington Post, Executive Editor says.