This Domain For Sale. Contact us for more information.

Any Job is an Honorable Job

Seeing your job as an honorable job, adds more meaning and peace to your life. Also, seeing the honor in what you do now, creates an ideal foundation upon which a career change can be built.

At fifteen, my first job was that of a waitress at a local truck stop. One day, back then, I happened to meet the elementary principal of my past. She mentioned she had heard I was working part time and wondered at what.

Shamefacedly I mumbled, "Oh, I am just a waitress." That wise, old, stern headmistress said to me, "Teresa, any job is an honorable job. Don't you ever forget it!" And I never have.

Of course, seeing the honor in our job is not always an easy task.

Societal Values Demean our Work & Worth

Our societal values make it difficult to honor so-called menial jobs. Our sick societal values esteem big bank accounts, fancy houses, new cars, extended paid vacations, prestigious jobs, beautiful, youthful looks, and perfectly cloned behaviors. These societal values wring the worth from the vast majority of hard-working folk.

Create your own values by looking for the honor and worth in your work now. Any honest day's work is honorable and worthy. Finding the honor and goodness in everything you do builds dignity and honor within you.

Even if you wanted to career change but instead returned to the field you had hoped to leave, remember, there is huge honor and courage in this. Taking care of your family and responsibilities does not mean you are a failure. It means you are a responsible, caring human being.

If you cannot find any worth in your current job, that lack of worth will likely haunt your career change. Before jumping jobs, seeking fulfillment elsewhere, consider your current job as sacred work.

Your Job as Sacred Work

Monastic writers have described their day-to-day, menial work as the path to holiness. Your job is much more than a means to pay bills. Try envisioning your job as your ministry.

I have a very health conscious, spiritual friend who, at this moment in her life, sells lottery tickets, liquor and cigarettes in a liquor store to help pay her bills. Rather than bitterly resent her position, she has made it her ministry to create a positive atmosphere, giving kindness and care to every human being that passes through those doors. Not surprisingly, wonderful little miracles occur often. (And yes, she is also doing the groundwork to create new employment.)

Rarely are things what they seem to be on the surface. In every relationship, in every job, and in every life experience there is much more going on than meets the eye.

"The three foundations of spirituality:
hearth as altar,
work as worship and
service as sacrament."
A Compilation of Triads, Volume I John F. Wright

We are always being called to see the bigger picture and to grow nearer to our soul. To find more meaning within the work you do now, query your soul as to the larger view.

Ask Your Soul

Try sitting quietly for awhile. Practice letting go of passing thoughts while lightly noticing your breath coming in and going out. Relax your body and mind. Ask your soul, "What is my work really about. What work am I really doing here?"

When I had grown weary of facilitating the same career assessment program for nine years, I sat and asked my soul this same question. Within the whisper of my small, still voice I heard the truth, "You are bringing light and hope to people."

The work I was doing was not about self assessment tools or job search but about bringing light and hope to people. From that day onward the program was no longer repetitive for me and as I gained more depth and meaning in my work, so did the program.

When we see our work as sacred and honorable, we feel good about what we are doing and who we are. This goodness spins off into our family, workplace and ultimately the world. This also, builds an ideal foundation for career change, if we so desire. From honoring ourselves and our current work we can then successfully begin taking small steps towards change.

Teresa Proudlove

Teresa is the publisher/editor of Yourlifework.com encouraging people to listen to their inner guidance, be gentle with themselves and practice present moment awareness. Herein, we learn to navigate through life with more acceptance and peace.

Teresa Proudlove has been inspiring, supporting, and guiding over 3000 people upon their career and life path for fourteen years - with compassion and heart. This entrepreneurial woman also, successfully owned two clothing boutiques for ten years. A well-read columnist for twelve years, Teresa continues her successful writing and teaching today as an editor/writer.

More Resources

Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting

More Careers & Employment Information:

Resume Tips To Take You From SAHM to WAHM
When looking for a telecommuting position, it is very important to have your resume in tip-top shape. This is often the only thing that a potential employer has to base a hiring decision on since they most likely will not be interviewing you in person, your resume has to make that great first impression for you.

How To Get That Promotion
If you're looking for that promotion or pay rise then you'll need to be noticed by your employer, so here's a few tips to stand out from the crowd:Have a Friendly & Positive attitude towards Everyone you come into contactProvide Service and treat Everyone as your customerBe Professional at all timesAlways look for extra work, especially when others are ducking for cover to avoid itWatch what your colleagues are doing, copy from the ones who are receiving praise for their efforts but learn to do it better than them, while avoiding doing what your "lazier or negative" colleagues are doingBe a Thinker and offer suggestion on how to do things better and more efficientlyPlan and follow your planDon't Procrastinate, do what needs to be done NOW!!Think ahead, when ask to do A & B, do C as wellAnticipate the next question and provide the answer before you're askedDress and Act as if you were already in the position you want to reachGo to lunch with successful people and learn from themDon't be afraid to ask questions and ask for helpAvoid Office PoliticsBe an Individual while being a team playerLearn everything about your company and productsFollow these tips and you won't need to ask for a promotion or extra money, it will happen automatically.Garry Munro is a successful consultant, speaker & coach.

How To Write A Résumé
Figure out what you want to do.You can't write an effective résumé if you have no job target.

Women Who Quit Work Abrubtly After Childbirth - Are You the Type?
According to statistics one out of every five pregnant women will not return to work. Quitting abruptly after childbirth could wreak havoc on your finances, your career and even your relationship with your partner.

How to Recoup From Missing the Most Important Meeting of the Year
Sometimes missing a critical meeting just can't be helped. Despite the advance planning, you just cannot make it to the meeting.

How to Be Prepared for a Layoff
If you are concerned that your company might be planning a layoff, your best course of action is to be prepared. Employees often see warning signs that their jobs may be at risk.

Job! Money! Career!
Feel somehow your life is stuck in MS-OFFICE - The reality of life for MBAs is Excel or PowerPoint , I heard Google is catching up at campus. Having gone through this myself, (I am still not out of it!), having had the nightmare of freshly minted MBAs reporting to me every year ( 90% of MBAs in their first job believe that their first Boss in Incompetent) and struggling to manage their transition to reality, guess I am now in a position to give some Gyan on assessing your job and career moves.

What To Do When You Get Caught Surfing By The Boss!
It has been a long morning and you need a mental break. You start thinking of your weekend plans and jump on your messaging program to make plans with a friend.

Resume Layouts ... The Hidden Pitfalls
Options for Resume LayoutsThere are many options of available to today's job seeker. With a quick change of graphical elements such as fonts and style, the feel of a resume can change from traditional and conservative to creative and modern.

Career Discovery - Pinpoint Your Ideal Career
Determine your ideal career--one that's in alignment withyour values, passions, and talents--and discover the workyou were born to doCareer discovery is the process by which a person identifiestheir ideal career path, thus saving themselves a lot oftime (and money) by not pursuing career choices that theywill ultimately find unfulfilling. To find your truecalling, you need to dig around and find the things that areimportant to you--now, and in the future.

Who Should Write Your Resume?
This is a question we get a lot. It seems rather easy to do it yourself if you have access to a word processing program and printer and feel comfortable writing your job history.

Overwhelmed and Overworked: The Myth of American Productivity
Employment finally seemed back on track during the first few months of 2004. Politicians crowed that "Our tax cuts are working.

Do Dream Jobs Really Exist?
More than four out of ten thirtysomething professionals want to change careers, but feel trapped and don't believe that they will, a new study shows.More thirtysomethings than ever before are feeling disillusioned with their careers and openly acknowledge that they'd like to move into something more rewarding and fulfilling.

Employment Law: Unfair Dismissal - Employer Succeeded in Changing Terms of Employment
Good News for Employers wishing to change the terms of employment of employees, however, employers must still take care.In Scott & Co v Richardson [2005], the Dependant, Mr Richardson, who worked for a Scottish firm of debt collectors, refused to accept his new terms of employment which required him to visit defaulting debtors during the evenings.

What You Should Never Put on Your Resume
Liars Get Caught! What NOT to Put on Your Resume"Everybody does it" as they say. Face it, the job market can be a very tough place to compete.

Managing Emotions During Career Change and Job Search, Part One
How can you manage your emotions during your career change or job search? To answer this practical and wise question, let's first define what emotions are. Emotions, also commonly referred to as feelings, are energy released in your body in response to perceived events, that is, to data received via your five senses.

Hiring Managers: Preventing "Fall-Off's" and Counter Offers
"Bill, thanks so much for your assistance with this search. We're very happy that Robert has accepted the position.

Overcome Interview Nerves: Be Better Prepared than Your Interviewer
Although interview preparation is everything it's sad to say that perhaps as many as half of all interviewers you're going to meet will be unprepared or incompetent. It's not all their fault, it's just lack of interview preparation time or responsibility; some of them will be co-opted at the last minute to meet you and won't have had time to prepare.

Kick-In-The-Pants Job Search
Believe it: three obstacles will hold you back from your ideal job -- your résumé, you, and your job-search methods. There's no hidden formula; there's no bribery needed; there's no one standing in front of employment - other than YOU!You've probably heard all the excuses, or used them yourself.

Virtual Heroes: The Growth of the Virtual Assistant
Building and expanding a business is a difficult task, when the management of the business in its existing form takes up much of the time. The administrative, office-based and creative tasks behind running a business, although time-consuming and often repetitive, are vital to the continued operations of the business.