The Joy of Doing What You Love

Folks who have dedicated their lives to sustainable, biodynamic, regenerative agriculture certainly aren’t in it for the amassing of monetary or material wealth.  They’re not in it for prestige or awards any of the numerous ways industrialized society has conditioned us to believe marks the achievement of success.  They are in it because they love it—love the land, the plants, the animals; they love nurturing growing things and bringing food to tables that are literally the fruits of their purposeful labor.

Sir Ken Robinson, bastion of education reform to encourage creativity and self actualization, gave a lecture in January that focused on how people and societies flourish when we can each be in our element—living out our passions and doing the things we love.  In it, he offered, “You know you’re doing what you love when an hour feels like five minutes, and you’re doing something for which you are completely disengaged when five minutes feel like an hour.”  You can find the talk here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17fbxRQgMlU.

So many people today, he noted, are disengaged from their work, putting in their time and waiting for the weekend.  How sad!  So much unnecessary misery, when the right person paired with the purpose can find fulfillment and joy, waking up in the morning with what Robinson described as an urgent sense of “I have to get to this, rather than I have to do this again.”

How do you know if you’ve found your passion—that magical mix of what you’re good at also being what you love?  It’s a journey (Robinson called it a “quest”) of self-discovery and opportunity (and quite often you have to make your own opportunity).  He spoke to moments when people had suddenly found their element, especially as youths.  I’ve told the story many times of my desire to have a pet bird resulting in the acquisition of our first chickens, but I want to rewind to the moment when I knew I had an almost magical kinship with birds—that moment that takes your breath away.

I’d been quite passionate about dinosaurs as a kid.  I had books and all kinds of mini toy dinosaurs, and I could talk about dinosaurs all day.  Birds of today are their genetic legacy, so it could seem like a logical transition of interests from dinosaurs to birds, but it wasn’t a logical or linear process.  While engrossed in a research project with my best friend when I was 11 in Montessori school, Mom took both of us to a bird sanctuary as a field trip.  That was a take-my-breath-away moment.  The beauty, the movement, the magical nature of these creatures was so varied and captivating that I knew I had to have birds in my life.

Domestic and wild birds are an integral part of our lived expression of sustainable, biodynamic, and regenerative farming here, and I can’t imagine life without these soft, warm, charismatic beings.  They bring me joy, and their tending and flourishing helps me feel grounded and right with the world.

That isn’t to say that when you’re doing what you love, every aspect is fun.  While I love my chickens dearly and take great joy in the process of raising them, butchering or cleaning out coops are not really days I look forward to.  But the underlying passion in the process carries me through the arduous and rough parts because I’m looking at the bigger picture.  I know that to keep the joy alive, there is effort.  It’s all part of the process.

A quote on this theme that has stuck with me since undergrad is by Howard Thurman, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs.  Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

I come alive in my fiber arts studio, surrounded by the beautiful wool of our sheep, bringing idea into form.  I come alive in my practice of writing, bringing ideas into stories to share with you.  And I come alive with my birds and the plants and this beautiful corner of the earth that we steward.  I am so blessed to be surrounded and empowered by my passions, my element.

If you are also living out your passions, take time to celebrate it and you’re journey to arrive at this point.  If you are wishing you could find or liberate your passion, I encourage you to take on that quest this winter.  Rediscover what you loved as a child, reconnect with nature and working with your hands, find those who nurture the best in you.  As the poet Rumi offers, “Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”

That is my hope for you this week, that you can have that joy of doing what you love, and that love in action is how you are able to manifest moving forward.  Time to feed (and hug) the chickens. See you down on the farm sometime.