Do You Love What You Do?

I've been musing about the meaning of life lately. I am lucky enough to be able to spend my working life making jewellery and mingling with other like-minded people but I will confess that there are times when I haven't felt happy about that. "What do you mean?" I hear you cry "Surely you of all people should be bouncing around with joy all day, every day". Well that's because life does become monotonous and no matter what it is that you're doing, it can become a grind...if you allow it to.

You see the word 'Allow' is the key here. We all have a choice about how we feel about things. I was reminded of this fact in the most expressive way possible yesterday. I've decided to embark on a bit of a spiritual journey and do some meditation. The person who is teaching me is a chap called Mark Abadi. He's a very interesting soul and I highly recommend you visiting his website and finding our more about. his work. Mark tells me (in his very animated way) that I can't help being who I am, doing what I do and that we are all living the life we are supposed to live. The key ingredient is to be present in our own lives and that we have a choice about the way we feel about our day to day experiences. 

So what has this got to do with silver clay or jewellery making? Well that's a very good question because it has a heck of a lot to do with it. Think about why you took up jewellery making in the first place. What was your motivation to do it? What did you love about it? When I take myself back to the first time I opened a packet of silver clay, I was absolutely bowled over by this amazing product and so proud of myself for making a piece of precious metal jewellery. I'm in the priviledged position to be making a careeer out of this now and there are days when my child-like wonder disappears and is replaced by complaints, stress and monotony. The choice I have is to see the project I'm doing as a challenge, to see the difficulties of trying to make something new as a great learning opportunity and to remind myself that I can make this enjoyable rather than mundane. Put on some music, make a big frothy coffee and just generally choose to enjoy myself more in these moments of jewellery making and deadline meeting.

Try and reconnect with the you who took up this craft and all feelings you experienced the first time you made something. Every time that you feel fed up about the jewellery projects you're working on, when you feel like you've lost that magical mojo or that jewellery making simply doesn't hold the allure it once did then something needs to change right away...starting with those thoughts and feelings. Oh, and maybe you just need to turn that music up and start enjoying!