Trusting, loving, and being of use

Photo credit: Amaya Gonzalez-Møllmann, 2021

“Our project for the morning is finding a place to shower — and I love that.” It was the mid-90s, and my colleague was calling in from Greece. He had up and left his job along with his spouse, they had loaded the 3 kids into a minivan and gone walkabouts.

I still remember my feeling of awe and wonder. How could it be enough to just look for a shower? How would they know what to do next? Where would they go? My colleague said they didn’t know and that was OK. Maybe that was the most awe-inducing.

They didn’t know and that was OK.

I am sitting with similar questions this morning, and only some of the answers. I have up and left my job. My project for the morning is going to the post office. I am not quite sure what to do next.

There is an impetus in the culture I grew up in to work. I had my first job at age 16, doing dishes to save up to pay for my ticket to the United States where I was to spend a year in high school. I went on to work as a legal secretary, a maid, a shop assistant in a bakery, a line chef in a canteen, then in marketing, branding, advertising, and then finally human rights.

I have never minded working. I believe the purpose of life is to love and to be of use. Always.

And maybe that is the crux of the matter: being useful is not the same as having a job, or even working. Being useful and loving is about leveraging the resources we each have to contribute to the collective, to the community, to life. Being useful, being grounded in love, is an attitude. Working is an imperative dictated by financial needs.

This morning as I head out to the post office, I hold my colleague’s words and demeanor close. “The day arranges itself,” he said. “You just have to trust.” The post office is the project of the morning. What comes after will arrive to me then, I trust.