I keep hearing this question over and over, like a mantra that others are praying for me. Kind of starts to get laughable when you hear it in strange places from people you don’t even know. Catching it in conversations you over hear in restaurants, the question being posed to someone on a podcast, an old friend emailing you to say that he wants to know the answer.

How can I get paid doing something I love?

Soon you start wondering what exactly the universe is telling you. Is it intended for you? This question is a statement about your life, not just a passing question you overhear in the sushi bar.

But then you need to decide what it is you love to do. Not what you can do and enjoy to make a living, but the thing you love most.

Mine might be writing. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry… I just love to write. When I am stressed I sit down and put those words in prose or add a little more to the same story I have been writing for a decade. I like to think about mindfulness and who I am, where I am going and how I am getting there. I am trying to be a better person too. Trying to slow down, to make less of a signature on my environment.

I used to get paid for writing. A decade ago I was a reporter for a few small-town papers in Oklahoma. I covered the state capitol for these little papers and I loved doing it. I quit because I was greedy. I needed money to start my life with the girl I wanted to marry.

So I left journalism to pursue a career dictated by the dollar. You might enjoy what you are doing and you are getting paid for it; but do you love it?

I do enjoy what I do for a living, I am lucky there. I love the people I work with, again, lucky there. But, I don’t love it. I don’t miss my profession when I am away for a vacation. I miss the people and the experience, but not the actual job.

Would I want to own a dojo and meditation center and work on my chi? Perhaps. Would I want to get paid to write? Sure. (Let me know if you want to make a donation to the Keep-Matt-Writing find.) Could I be a life-coach? Greg might think so, but no one else I am sure. (I tell Greg to think that.)

Really, what do I love enough to do that as a way to live?

Maybe if I keep asking myself the same question pretty soon I will answer it too.

What about you?

My son played in a basketball tournament this past weekend and I was honestly disturbed by the lack of sportsmanship. Both the players and the parents of the opposing team in the final showed such a lack of control on their emotions that their thuggish nature was showing openly. At one point a parent from the other team actually yelled out when one of our kids was making a foul shot. Amazing.

It makes me wonder why people act as they do. I mean, hey, we all wanted to win as well. Our kids wanted to beat them and claim the first place trophy too; but we didn’t act like heathens.

I know I might be coming off like I think we are better than them, and I do not mean to imply that at all. I am sure they are good people. I bet if I met them on the street I would even like them. But there, in the field house while the kids were playing, they acted like fools.

Just the other day I was reading Good Life, Good Death: Tibetan Wisdom on Reincarnation and I was impressed with how the author taught about the Ego. I guess the ego is what would make someone behave as the parents and kids from the other team acted.

The Ego is only concerned with its own happiness. Nothing and no one else.

They wanted the trophy and bragging rights so badly they never stopped to think about their actions. On the court the kids were too busy trying to win at all cost that they didn’t recognize how their own actions were hurting them. In the stands the parents were acting as if winning that trophy would make jeering ten year olds acceptable.

I just don’t get it.

When the tournament organizer was handing out the trophies to our team, their Second Place trophies the parents and kids from the other team just stood there and talked about how great it was to beat us. While they accepted the First Place trophies our kids, our coaches and the parents clapped for the winning team.

Do you think they understood that? I wondered if they even noticed really.

Sad. What a sad thing they were busy teaching their kids that day; I hope my son was paying attention though. I hope he saw how proud we were of the effort he and his team put out on the court. They gave it their all, and they did it with integrity and sportsmanship.