Do what you love and the money will follow. As I muse joyfully this week on this adage, I bask gratefully in the truth of this statement.
Susan Dromey Heeter
I’ve had the joy of earning a few bucks from doing things I love – writing, speaking Spanish, reading great literature, travelling, working with children and young adults.
This adage, with some creativity and persistence, can be true – and there is nothing lovelier than watching someone who truly lives their passion and earns a living from it.
I think of Warren Buffet who found his joy in investing, doing his homework, using his very natural gifts to create and succeed financially. I muse joyfully on Oprah whose gift of the gab and talent for inquiry has provided her with a plethora of opportunities and a sizable bank account.
I am entirely grateful Meryl Streep chose to act; I can think of no role I do not find her entirely believable.
On the flip side of this adage, I do find it somewhat disheartening that people would vie for jobs of which they really don’t seem entirely suited. Potential Education Secretary Betsy DeVos comes to mind; bless her heart, she looked like such a deer in the headlights while attempting to speak of education policy. But Betsy did get me thinking of jobs of which I would have no business doing.
If I were asked, for example, to become a sushi chef, I would tank. Completely. I’d probably make them from fruit roll ups and rice krispies and be fired day one. Fired. Gone.
When I asked Spanish teaching colleagues what jobs they would have absolutely no business doing, Greg did not hesitate in replying, “Anything in the medical field – my blood pressure rises just walking into a hospital.” I asked Greg what he would do if I dropped and had a heart attack and he responded, “I’d yell ‘Help! Call 911!'”
When I asked my friend John, he responded, “Surgeon. My hands shake.” And Lauren? Her nightmare job? “I’d be useless as a hairdresser, useless.”
Math teacher Eric remarked that he would have no business as an interior decorator or anything to do with fashion. “My wife” he admitted, “tells me I do not know how to dress…but I do know red and blue go together.”
French teacher Kathy told me she would never make it as an electrician. She then admitted that she had not only installed a chandelier on her own, she had done it with no directions whatsoever. “I bought the chandelier at a yard sale for five bucks” she said, “And then hung it. It’s worked ever since.”
In my mind, Kathy has excellent potential as an electrician. In fact, I think she’s earned her journeyman’s license already.
Alas, it’s good to know of which we not only excel, but of which we can potentially earn doing an honest day’s work, a living. That, my fellow joyful musers, is a gift. Here is hoping you find yours.Susan Dromey Heeter, a writer from Dover who recently let her hair go au natural white, debuts her new column “Joyful Musings” at InDepthNH.org. Dromey Heeter is a secondary Spanish Teacher at Dover High School and the mother of two teenage daughters. Writing has been her passion since her English majoring days at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Dromey Heeter has lived in The Netherlands, Alaska and currently basks in all things New England, including the frigid winters. An avid swimmer, Dromey Heeter’s great passion is to bring back body surfing as most children have no idea how to ride waves without ridiculous boogie boards. She also writes about thrift shopping and all things frugal in a column called “Budget Vogue” for the New Hampshire Union Leader.