{"id":4355,"date":"2011-03-01T16:26:55","date_gmt":"2011-03-01T20:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/?p=4355"},"modified":"2020-11-01T14:15:09","modified_gmt":"2020-11-01T18:15:09","slug":"the-joy-factor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/the-joy-factor\/","title":{"rendered":"The Joy Factor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Years ago when I lived in Santa Barbara, I observed a weekly ritual\u2014the Friday migration north which was followed by the Sunday migration south. I\u2019ve often wondered if such traffic jams inspired Loverboy\u2019s Working for the Weekend<\/em>.<\/p>\n

For too many of us, work and fun have occupied separate territories. \u00a0In my family, there was a frequently quoted German adage that translated to “first you work, then you play.” The implication was that never the twain shall meet.<\/p>\n

No adults I knew growing up suggested that I should discover what brought me joy before I began to think about choosing a career\u2014and I certainly didn’t see many folks who seemed to be having a great time going about their work.<\/p>\n

When I realized that I would be spending a huge amount of time working, an occasional fun weekend didn\u2019t seem a fair tradeoff for days of drudgery. Although it was done in private, I began my own Joy Quest to see if I could get paid to have fun.<\/p>\n

Along the way, I heard Moneylove<\/em><\/strong> author Jerry Gilles<\/a> say, \u201cAnything worth having is worth having fun getting.\u201d It seemed like an idea worth testing. I decided to go for joy all along the way.<\/p>\n

Some of the things I discovered were downright startling. I found that as my own boss, with a new vision to create, I could tackle things on behalf of building my own business that would have driven me crazy had I been doing them as part of a job.<\/p>\n

Working with joy seemed to spill over to activities I might previously have dreaded. For instance, if someone had handed me thousands of newsletters to label and stamp, I\u2019d have tensed right up, but when that pile is Winning Ways<\/a><\/em>, and I\u2019ve put it together myself, I can\u2019t wait to share it with my subscribers.<\/p>\n

When our work is also a source of joy and fun, it leads us to become more creative, more engaged, more masterful. Those rewards are much harder to obtain when we’re only working for money.<\/p>\n

So during March, we\u2019ll be exploring the theme of Money for Fun. I\u2019d love to hear your stories about the most fun you\u2019ve ever had earning money. Since I made that request in the last Joyfully Jobless News<\/a><\/em>, people have been sending me delightful examples which I\u2019m going to be sharing throughout the month, but I’d love more inspiring tales.<\/p>\n

As poet David Whyte<\/a> reminds us, \u201cAnyone or anything that does not bring you alive is too small for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m pretty sure that includes work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Years ago when I lived in Santa Barbara, I observed a weekly ritual\u2014the Friday migration north which was followed by the Sunday migration south. I\u2019ve often wondered if such traffic jams inspired Loverboy\u2019s Working for the Weekend. For too many of us, work and fun have occupied separate territories. \u00a0In my family, there was a…<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[819],"tags":[10,526,27,821,822,820],"class_list":["post-4355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-money-for-fun","tag-creative-self-employment","tag-david-whyte","tag-growing-a-business","tag-jerry-gilles","tag-loverboy","tag-the-joy-factor","jsn-master"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4355"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7382,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4355\/revisions\/7382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}