Should You Quit Your Job? | Eckhart Tolle on Doing What You Love and Loving What You Do

You may go to a workshop, a new age workshop, and say, where they teach you, I'm happy, I'm happy. And then you can kind of, you go through, I'm really enjoying this. But you're not. So can you, can you at least, can you accept I've been a model for 10 years. Somewhere deep inside, I kept hoping for a big break. It never came. Or has yet to come. Is it time to move on to another job? If this job is not making me money, it's time to move to another job. If this job is not enjoyable anymore, if you're unable to enjoy what you're doing, then it's time to move to another job. But you have to look to see whether your inability to enjoy the job you're doing now has something to do with the particular job you're doing or has more to do with your inability to enjoy the present moment, in which case the next job that you find you will also not enjoy. So if you can't enjoy your job, either one of these is true. Either there is something for you to change. There's something inherently not right anymore with this particular job does no longer corresponds to who you are or your state of consciousness. Or you cannot enjoy your job because you haven't learned yet to be present enough to enjoy what you are doing now. And you always think, oh, the next one is going to be much better. And if you don't know which one it is of those two, you may have to get another job and then see if you can enjoy that one. Many jobs that the mind tells you cannot be enjoyed actually can be enjoyed also. The mind telling you, if you enjoy this job, that you really don't want this job to be permanent. And if the mind tells you no, if I enjoy this job, I'll be stuck with it for the rest of my life, and I don't want to be stuck with it. Let's say you got a job working, working in a diner as a waiter or waitress, but you really want to get your job as an actress, or you really want to be a writer, you really want to be whatever you want to be a senator, successor of Donald Trump, whatever your mind says. And so the mind says, I'm not going to enjoy this job because I really want to be somewhere else, and if I enjoy it, then I'll really be stuck. But you may find that the opposite is the case. It is freeing to enjoy what you are doing, even if it's not something that you would want to do for the rest of your Life. All you have to do is enjoy the present moment. Your energy field then shifts. And when this energy field shifts, you become open to life. Only if you no longer resist life, you cannot be open to life. The greater consciousness coming through you. If you resist life and you resist life. If you resist or resent the present moment, that's where life is. So the shift happens. You need to be in the state of alignment with the present moment, no matter what activity you are doing in the present moment. And if you absolutely cannot be in alignment with the present moment, you need to walk out. So if I got a job as a bartender in a disco, I would walk out. I could surrender. If they shut me in there and it's impossible for me to leave the building, I would still surrender. But since there is still a door that I can open, I would walk out. Because although I know how to surrender, I wouldn't want to surrender there if I can help it. So when we use the expression to enjoy what you do, we get this little word, joy. Here again. Enjoy. To enjoy. What is the English language? To enjoy what you do. So when you enjoy what you do, joy arises from within. And I would say it's not the doing. It looks as if what you do perhaps gave you joy, but it's really your presence in the doing that allows the joy to come from within you, and then it flows into what you do. So rather than the doing giving you joy, because you are present in the doing, the joy arises from within, and it flows into what you do. And so you can say, I enjoy this work. I enjoy doing this. Now, if you cannot enjoy it, try first just to accept it. Then this is what you're doing in this moment. Let's say you start off with, you're working at Denny's, or you're not from the United States. Dennis is a chain of diners throughout the states. Not bad. Okay. Often there's nothing else. If you're driving along, you work at. Let's say you work, and you absolutely are. Resistance. You don't really want to be there, but you have to earn money. You are a graduate. Let's imagine you're a graduate. You've applied for jobs. Because of the recession, you can't get any jobs, and you've had 50 rejections, and you're getting frustrated. And here you are stuck in this menial job. What did I study for all those years? All for nothing. All these thoughts go through your head while you're serving people, okay? And then you come into contact with the spiritual Teaching or this teaching that points to the possibility of enjoying what you do, and you say, I can't enjoy that. Okay, then try something else. Can you at least accept that right now this is what you do? Don't try to get yourself to enjoy it. It might become unnatural. You might play a role to yourself. You may go to a workshop, a new age workshop, and say, where they teach you, I'm happy, I'm happy. And then you can kind of, you go, I'm really enjoying this. But you're not. So can you, can you at least, can you accept that this is what you're doing right now? Not for the rest of your life, not even perhaps for the whole year, who knows, but just right now, this is all there is right now. So. So I might as well accept that this is what I'm doing right now. Can you accept it if you can't enjoy it? Okay, I can try. That feels already better. Feels much better. And sometimes from there, before you know it, there is no clear dividing line between acceptance and enjoyment. Somewhere they merge. So if you begin with acceptance, you may find suddenly there's even some enjoyment there. Acceptance just means there is an absence of resistance. You're just, well, that's what is. And that can sometimes take you. Suddenly, before you know it, there's an enjoyment that arises. Oh, so if you think you can't enjoy, don't force yourself to enjoy. That doesn't work. Except that's all first. This is what is right now. I talked about that in the New Earth where I had three modalities. It's just come back to you. I haven't read the book in a long time. Three modalities of doing. You can have acceptance, you can have enjoyment, or the most intense is. Then this is usually when there's a creative process happening through you. I call it enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is an intense, intense energy stream that flows, is part of creativity. And so if you are. In order to live consciously and sanely, you have to be in either one of these three modalities. If you are neither in acceptance nor enjoyment nor enthusiasm, you are somewhere in dysfunction and you are creating unhappiness and suffering for yourself. And that usually implies you are also creating suffering for others, because unhappy humans make others unhappy too. So if you cannot accept, enjoy, or be in enthusiasm, remove yourself. Remove yourself and then try again somewhere else. But acceptance, in a way, is the most accessible, of course, to try that. It.