Are you wanted! for a crime, or because it's worth your time?

If there was a wanted poster out for you that aligned with your life, as it is now, would it be for something that you'd get punished for (like a crime), or something that you would be kept for (like a prize)? Would the sheriff in town seek to eliminate your threat, or would he be looking for you because he really needs your help? In a world where life is work-defined, we all have one of these wanted posters out for us. If we don't, we are in the bottom feed that nobody wants to eat out of.  It's like our "worth". 

Even if we don't define ourselves externally (i.e. based on how much use we are to other people), a healthy symbiotic relationship with the world demands that we should have something good enough to offer that warrants our own wanted poster to be out by someone. We're after all people of the same Universe or sub-universe wherever we live. In a happy world, we shouldn't be aliens in our own society. Hopefully, they don't want to find us because they want us to go away, but because they want us to stay and benefit them.

To some, this comes naturally. They didn't have to try to be wanted. Some, though, have to try really hard. In the case of the latter, it becomes a burden. Only a person wanted for good reasons can get a good job, have a bright career and build a future for themselves and their family. A person who's wanted for any reason other than these has to struggle more for those.

Somewhere in between, we've forgotten why we work in the first place. One approach is that we work to earn our rest, and that's the full extent of that. We live so that we can work so that we can live, and raise a generation so that they are able to live, and hence enable them to work so that they can do the same thing.  Here, "live" means sleep well, eat well, enjoy the love of your family, experience life, put food on the table, and live life on every term that you want to define a good life with - or at least get as close to achieving all of that and more, if you so wish. 

The other approach is that we work because rest is the last thing that we should be doing. The goal is to move forward - anywhere, somewhere. Somewhere inside we believe it is detrimental to mankind to ever rest, and rest well. This is how one extreme end of capitalism defines it. It has orchestrated a jump from job to career. We forget why we even work in the first place, a reason that has never changed. We still hanker after getting better pay packets and creating higher life security & quality, while insisting that it is anything but about the money. It's about the passion, we insist, and the money will follow us. How that principle defines our dark circles and health, among other effects, is more than evident. There are the ethical versions of that principle, though where there is smart (and hard) work with benefits to boot.

Whether you follow the first or the second approach, living your best life with the weight of that wanted poster hanging over your neck isn't a way to live. It will just slow you down as the kind of person you want to be in your out-of-office hours while reflecting poorly in how you enjoy the time you spend during those 8-10 hours every day earning your bread. That's no way to live and breathe.

Instead, the people who put those wanted posters out should be looking at what they should be wanting from you, based on who you are and what you can do, without boxing you in. They won't find their best - ever! - by telling even thinking in boxes. One truth is that sometimes they aren't looking for a lot of value add, but just a lot of easily capable pairs of hands. Professional passion can also mean doing something not very complicated that you simply enjoy too!