Do you enjoy your job? Is your job bearable? Do you have a great job! Does your job really suck? I only ask these questions because of how much time we spend at our jobs. Many of us spend more than one third of our lifetime (more than one half of our waking life.) at work or thinking about work. Some of us even spend a lot of our sleep time dreaming about work, if our job is bad enough.

The truth is that even if our jobs are not good, we can make them exciting by using some of the same techniques that have been used in indigenous communities, and spiritual communities, since the beginning. If we can use those techniques to strengthen our ability to handle stress, to increase our creativity, and to help us see the world in a larger, more holistic way, we can make any job not only bearable, but exciting. We can strengthen ourselves in the process and learn to do a lot more. We can grow as individuals and become better people.

Sounds like pie in the sky, doesn't it? Yet, even as we speak, some people have been able to do this almost naturally. The truth is that it isn't just natural. Somehow they have picked up the insights that allow them to do just about any job and still enjoy life. Maybe they learned it from their families, or through their peer groups, but they have learned how. I know a guy who used to love carpet cleaning. Everyone else left the job as fast as possible. He just stayed there. He was happy and wasn't planning on going anywhere. He's probably still there.

We can all learn how to enjoy just about any job too. The first step is to believe that it is possible. If we give up hope, we won't be able to do anything. The second step is to be willing to try to enjoy your job, even if you are at the point where you just want it dead. After we have decided that we will try to enjoy this job, even if we are busy looking for another one, we can take another major step. We can begin to look at what we like about the job. "What do you mean?” you may ask. "I hate that job.”

I mean what you like about the job. You must like some things and hate some things. Pick what you like about the job. Write what you like about it down, if you need to. Pick what you hate and write that down, and then try to increase the parts that you like and decrease the parts that you hate. You may not be able to do this, but try to anyway and then focus on enjoying the parts that you like more. Just by taking the time to do this first step, you will begin to like your job a bit better. If you have the leeway, you can begin to be more creative at the parts that you like. Since jobs take so much of our time, it's important to either get a good enjoyable one, or make the one that we have enjoyable.

This is only one step out of many, but try it and see how it works. Good luck