Broke but Happy

Don't have much in the way of money at the moment. Working a great deal of odd jobs to try and make everything work out. Most recent has been cleaning busses at the depot.

Cleaning busses has been my favourite job to date. I never knew such peace could be found in the workplace. I just arrive at work and then get on with one job after another until the shift is over. It's really straightforward. On occasion someone tells me to go faster or tells me I've missed a bit with the mop, but such things can be overlooked given how much worse other jobs can be.

In terms of the working class life you can only ever really appreciate a "good job" once you have experienced some truely terrible working conditions.

Such is life. I potentially have other jobs lined up although I have the logistics of moving to a new flat to worry about. Still, I always find that logistical life problems that are beyond your control lie in God's problem solving domain.

Prayer really does work and my experience has been that the good Lord does provide for us if only we are willing to accept what He offers with gratitude and humility.

My next job will be better paid and in a pleasant office environment. Most likely an opportunity I wouldn't appreciate had I not done the rounds in less comfortable workplaces.

I read a book called Psycho-Cybernetics. I don't know if the book prompted a growing change within myself or if my reading was a consolidation of something that has been changing within me recently.

There really is something to be said for a radical positivity. In trusting that things will work out for the best in the long run. Without that kid of hope you wouldn't be able to persevere through any kind of difficulty.

Recently I have been much more calm and denied the anxiety that normally creeps around in my mind. I'm not saying that mental health problems don't exist, although sometimes that "feeling good about life" seems to be more of a choice than we allow ourselves to think.

Nothing is more ugly than a man who feels sorry for himself, and so I try not to feel sorry for myself but rather just get on with the matters at hand and not become too fractured in mind.

I think that's what got me through the interview process for the good job.

A strange sort of gravitas is needed.

A trusting that whatever opportunities that do come your way are as much a calling to be more than you were previously as something you are entitled to.

Indeed we aren't really entitled to anything. Everything must be earned in some way. Although often good things come our way without regard for our hard work in any particular direction.

Such things are from the grace of God.

Dealing with all of this: the practical issues of life, other people and the demons that lurk in your psyche are necessary. They are the very things that make up a human life well lived.

I feel there is something truly good in the not giving up and in the perseverance through whatever difficulties may arise.

Yet when it comes to satisfaction it is not simply about how hard we try to achieve one aim or another. It is about the WAY we strive. It is our nature in every interaction. It is the words and kindness we show others. It all adds up, if not in your bank account then in the greatest reserves of the human heart.

I am reminded of "The Idiot" by Dostoevsky. A story about a man who seems to have little thought for self preservation beyond what is absolutely necessary. A story about a man who strives but always in a way that is well natured and in service of others. A story about a life well lived internally, even if invisible to the rest of the world.

In my meanderings through one job and another I feel a closeness to the idiot that redeems and preserves me. The living out of Christs mission for the human life and heart.

To live well in word, deed and in thought rather than in the things we say about ourselves or in the pointless striving for worldly ends.

Going to work in a few hours. Looking forward to speaking with friends. Enjoying the solitude of thought where lack of company allows. 

If we do not enjoy time alone then we must be in bad company

I don't know who said it but it's true. So let me be in good company for a change, let me continue to stay true to proper direction and not allow negativity or anxiety to take hold of my mind for another moment.

Godspeed.