Paying with Stress

I have watched rice farmers, pottery makers, carpet weavers and other professionals practice their craft with so much presence that it left me in awe. Those crafts were practiced in repetition until mastery was achieved not only over the craft itself but also over the mind. Those masters mesmerise and pull you in to watch closely as they perform their jobs gracefully leaving you sure that they were born to practice their skills and bring beauty and vitality to this world.

And there are jobs on the other side of the spectrum that are full of struggle, effort and challenges. There are jobs that leave the person performing them drained, restless or even cynical. Those jobs are filled with tasks that yield no real result. Full of to do lists, meetings, memos, documents and plans that do not end up accounting for much in the large scale of things.

And yet in most cases, the latter jobs pay better, monetarily at least. This got me thinking about why? No one profession is more important than the other in definite terms. We all need to be doing different things for our world to continue to flourish. Yet some of us have chosen one thing over the other. Some are buying presence, joy or even the sense of achievement with money. Others are buying money with time ​

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