This week in my Tergar practice I am meditating of work, on its problems and its joys.
On Tuesday I sent a proposal to an agent, and all week I feel like I'm waiting in line at a rollercoaster. Will she take me on, will she pass, and will I have to keep waiting in line forever. If she takes it, I go on a huge up and down experience of finishing and marketing a book. I she passes, like the other agents have, I need to decide whether I keep waiting, or give up and try another ride.
The evening I sent in the proposal I went to the book launch of an acquaintance younger and now more successful than I. She signed the book "to the first bookish person I ever knew." I should be happy for her, and happy for whatever influence I've had on her. But I'm envious.
So while I was meditating on work this week I sat plunk in the middle of that billious feeling. It was a very instructive pond of toxic suffering. It taught me that the miscerceptions that were holding me back in my work was and continues to be the idea that work is about me, this self that I've created. And so because of this misperception I think that publication or success will add something to me, and that failure will take away something from me.
But those are just the highs of work. The joys of work are found in being part of something, and believing your part of something that will liberate people from their suffering and help them find more happiness. Without that work is just an empty rollercoaster of thrills and long, punishing waits.
I need to wake up every morning and feel that I'm an agent of change. An author, but an author that is part of something bigger and more important.
Shifting out of the self-driven path, I feel the joy. I feel the flow of energy that I want my work to be a part of. I feel the hope.
I feel the possibility that I can be an agent of change.
