Quarantine Dairy #669 A Rerun

1/12/2022

I have a lot of projects to get through today. I wrote this in 2006 when I worked at Target for six months. I still like it.

...

This week I saw an inspiring sight.  I saw a little kid completely lost in his imagination. 

The boy, who looked about 4-years-old, was sitting on the floor at the store where I work.  He'd plunked himself down next to some bins of cheap plastic cups, plastic Margarita glasses, and plastic pineapples. He'd cleverly stacked some of these items into interesting towers and during the moment I watched him, he was struggling to balance a pineapple on top of them. 

He didn't have a mess of misplaced merchandise all around him; he'd only borrowed a few things. He was also very quiet as he concentrated in that that way people do when they get lost in their own world. I noticed a mother and big sister not too far away, shopping and chatting. One could guess he was on his way to becoming a world-class architect as a defense against the slow-shopping women in his life.

I was already thinking about this column, so his enterprise caught my attention.

Sometimes it feels as if our whole culture is devoted to the pursuit of romantic love (when it isn't devoted to war, that is). Sure, finding a partner, falling in love with them, then pulling off a big ole wedding is interesting stuff. But what does one do with the rest of their life? Review the wedding album?

Here's what I wonder.  Do we sometimes pursue romance because we are afraid to pursue that other element that really does make a huge difference to our daily happiness? 

You know what I mean.

How's your work-life lately? 

Did you know when you were 16 and dreaming of blue mascara, blue cars, and bluer dates -- that that the career you would pursue would make the biggest difference to the quality of your life?

Most of us were not positive what we wanted to become. Even if we thought we wanted to be rock stars or astronauts, icons of fashion or brain surgeons, we were usually surrounded by people who insisted we should be reasonable -- a great way to tell a 17-year olds that they should put the lid on their dreams.  So we got some practical training or education, and then we went to work.

As they say, life happens.

Still, what about the kid in us who needs to build towers? How do we keep on waiting on customers and answering the phone when we have pineapples lurking in our souls? How do we keep our spirits alive while we do tedious and demanding tasks all day long? 

No matter how young or old we are, we really need to honor those crazy inner pineapples. Some people sculpt, some listen to others really, really well. Some make or pay attention to music in a way that is more than pastime. Some are passionate about organizing things, others study stars, train cats, paint lighthouses, nurture children. This isn't about playing games, this is about doing the thing that makes our consciousness fall away as we do the thing we are here to do.

If we earn our living doing these things, we are luckier than most. But even if it isn't what brings home the bacon, I'm sure it's still our work.  

Have you ever noticed this at your job? There are clearly defined tasks for you and your fellow employees.  You may even have written job descriptions straight from the heart of your HR department.

But is there one person who always remembers birthdays, someone else you go to for one kind of knowledge, another you tell when the printer jams? Do you automatically rely on one person to keep you all safe, another to make you laugh?

Like a 4-year old who builds forts and towers wherever he goes, we have work to do, and the world won't be right until we do it.