Live to Work or Work to Live?

My whole life I have struggled with the concept of finding work that I love. A career that would never feel like I had to get up in the morning for, but rather something that I ponder,

“How the hell am I getting paid to do this?”

I had fleeting glimpses into this dream lifestyle; I met people like Anthony Bourdain, whom has my dream job in a nice little package from the Travel Channel, and I started to wonder how I too could get paid to ransack with locals and get into international escapades on someone else’s dime.

And a job just like that is still the wet dream of my adulthood, every step I take is one step closer to being an international jet setter living out of a suitcase with an eye full of adventure.

But, in the meantime, I realized that I couldn’t quite survive on my dashing internet presence and devastating good looks, I had to either become a gigolo or separate my job from my identity, hence my freelance business (www.gabrielworks.com), my random part time jobs that pay me to talk to people, and my monetized websites that are scattered across the four corners of the internet.

What I do isn’t exactly what I love, but it at least creates a separation of church and state that allows me to be ample in the most valuable commodity of all, time.

Essentially it boils down to the following,

a) I want my job to be an important part of my Identity. I want to enjoy the prestige, lifestyle, money and trappings of my job and want to talk to other people about what I do. I ask other people what they do and I evaluate them (even just a little) based on their answers. It would be great to be the boss or be an Important Person in my industry. If I lost my job I might feel ashamed and would try to get back into it with improved focus!

b) I do not care if my job is a part of my Identity. I have many interests and am always doing something new in my spare time. I would like to keep a boundary between my life outside work and my time spent at work. I want my job to provide me with enough money so that I can do the things I love to do when I’m not working. I enjoy time over money. The things I most enjoy in life are not easily commodifiable or are not associated with lucrative incomes.

So I propose to you a question, your job is your life, or life is your job? There is no wrong answer, but own up to what you want to do and just fucking do it.

I am a commodity.

Gabriel