Every morning, as I pour my morning coffee, I reach up and grab a small notecard that I keep hidden within my coffee mugs. On it, I’ve scribbled six important questions to ask myself before going about my daily tasks. One of those questions is, “Did I do my best to find meaning in my work, or in my life?” I had learned about these daily queries from one of the many inspirational podcasts that I listen to. But today, for whatever reason, it occurred to me that I have been doing it backwards.
I realized the questions are supposed to be asked before going to bed at night, not in the morning. They are meant to call attention to how we have moved throughout our day. Did I do my best to be fully present, achieve my goals (to be honest, did I even set goals), to be happy (happy, what’s that), and to be fully engaged (definitely a challenge)?
But when I ask those same questions in the morning, a funny thing happens. Rather than reflecting back on my day, I am sort of chasing after the answers. Because instead of finding meaning in the work I do, I spend my days looking for meaningful work to do.
Although there is nothing wrong with looking for something worthwhile to do, the problem is, I don’t think the work I am doing has much relevance. And nothing brought this point into sharper focus, than during my French conversation class.
We had been learning how to pronounce different professions in French, and our instructor asked us each to practice saying what our occupations were. As soon as she said it, I panicked. Oh no, I thought. She is going to ask me what I do for a living and I don’t have anything to say. I’m just a stat-at-home mom, and I’m not even that anymore because my daughter is now in college.
One by one, I listened as my classmates answered: an accountant, a computer programer a retired lawyer. When she got to me, I felt the slow flush of redness on my cheeks. “I guess you could say I’m a retired say-at-home mom,” I murmured, “because my daughter is away in college.” “It’s okay, you can say you’re a housewife,” my instructor cheerfully replied. Une femme au foyer, she announced to the class. And although the French do seem to have a way of making even the most mundane sound impressive, my heart just sank into my stomach.
I have trouble finding meaning in the ordinary stuff I do all day. Yes, it helps people, mainly my family, but it doesn’t feel like it is important enough of a contribution. I remember decades ago having lunch with a friend when our daughters were still in strollers, and I was rambling on and on about how I wanted to do something more with my life. She sternly looked over at me and flatly replied “why can’t you just accept that you’re a stay-at-home mom.”
Because the truth is, I am always trying to find meaning two stories up from where I am standing right now. But I am never going to find it there. Until I can learn to embrace the purpose in my everyday life, in the cooking, the cleaning, the grocery shopping, not the lofty goals and glamorous life I dream about, but the everyday life of an ordinary housewife, “une femme au foyer,” nothing else will matter. There is always a starting point, and maybe that starting point is accepting that what I am doing now is enough.
And maybe what I do is in fact more meaningful than I give myself credit for: keeping a household running smoothly, cooking good meals to keep my family and myself healthy, making sure bills get paid in time, making our home a peaceful and inspiring heaven…Maybe I enable good things to happen and that is good enough for us.
So instead of looking two stories up I’ll try to ground myself where I am standing right now. And rather than searching for that one meaningful role, I’ll remind myself to place value on the little choices and actions I make throughout the day, no matter how ordinary or mundane they sometimes feel.
And in the meantime, I’ll focus on energize the Knowledge and Self Cultivation area of the bagua, and while I’m at it, I might just place a couple pieces of rose quartz in theRelationship section too (aka the symbolic “Mother” domain in Feng Shui), after all, she is the Divine “Femme au foyer,” of the bagua map!
Elemental Energies 