“Your career is like a love relationship”

This is what the French taxi driver said when he drove me to the airport on Friday. “If it isn’t someone you want to be with everyday, someone who makes you laugh, feel good and inspired – you get out.” This man had left his career in communication to retrain and become a psychologist. Since many years back now, he’s working in Casablanca, Marroco, with poor kids and their parents. He said that it comes so natural to him, he wants to give back and to have a job where he makes an impact. He said that he wants to give from his heart.

I was just amazed at his story. As the job in Marroco didn’t bring much income he had to work for Uber when he was in Paris, but this man truly LOVED his life. It made me realize just how much we can learn from each other. As he dropped me off, he made lots of jokes and tried to convince to go skip the flight to Stockholm and to drive all the way to Marroco with him, as we were “on the way and all”. I was joking saying “Sure, I have my bags with me”, but he then said: “Maria, I’m dead serious. I go where I want, when I want. Life’s meant to be experienced”.

Universe has really got a sense of humor

Universe has made me smile so many times these past weeks with all the different signs and small treasures. I told a friend of mine that I’ve started to wake up very early every morning and that it takes about an hour before I can go back to sleep again. Generally, I’ve always been able to sleep through the whole night, so this new habit has been a bit frustrating. My friend told me to look at the time when I wake up, because there might be a message there. So I did. The time was 05:29 when I woke up this morning, and when I googled about it I was chocked and happily surprised. It turns out that the early wakeups were not without a reason.

Number 529 is saying that the changes I’m undertaking today will bring me into alignment with my Divine life purpose. I need to have faith and trust and always know that angels are supporting, encouraging and guiding me every step of the way. It is saying that the changes I’ve made to my career will bring me a greater personal fulfilment on many levels. It’s also a clear message to let go of what no longer serves me positively in my life. I shouldn’t hold on to fear, but instead look forward to new and better situations to come into my life. The number is about major life changes, opportunity, personal freedom, adaptability, partnerships and relationships, balance, harmony and serving of soul mission and life purpose. It also indicates spiritual awareness and enlightenment, and leading life as a positive example for others.

To be or not to be in a Flow

You know the feeling of being in a flow? When you’re fully concentrated, loosing track of time, forgetting yourself, others and the world around you. When you’re in the moment – feeling happy, calm, creative and productive. When you completely loose yourself in what you’re doing. Well, that’s not me at the moment. I’m so far off it. I’ve no motivating for my work, I struggle to get even the smallest things done and I make mistakes. Just being at work drains my energy, 10 minutes can feel like 2 hours and a work week can feel like a month. I sell my time for money. No money is worth your valuable time if it doesn’t make you feel good.

When I’m doing something I love I get into my flow (like writing this blog). When I’m doing something important, something I truly care about that is challenging yet not too difficult. When I’m focused on one single task (instead of multiple), when I’m in a quiet space and away from all distractions. That’s what I will create for myself. Life’s too short not to be in a flow.

Breaking boundaries

We all have boundaries – mental rules that are telling us what’s possible and what’s not possible to do. In Sweden we have a culture influenced by something called “jantelagen”. It can be summarized in one sentence “Don’t think that you’re anyone special“. If we fail, we know we’ll have people’s judgement re-confirming that these boundaries exist. So many of us figure that it’s better not to try, because not trying means not failing.

I didn’t create the rules of what’s possible and not possible for me. They were imposed on me by someone else, and I simply accepted them. There are no boundaries – they’re all illusions.  Everything seems impossible until it’s done. Lately I’ve heard several people telling me: “that’s not very realistic Maria”. According to who? Not me and that’s all that matters. To realize our full potential, we need to find these rules (which often can be in our unconscious) and break them. 

Just think about these companies and how ridiculous their business ideas sounds (content taken from Quora):

• Facebook – the world needs yet another Myspace or Friendster except several years late. We’ll only open it up to a few thousand overworked, anti-social, Ivy Leaguers. Everyone else will then join since Harvard students are so cool.
• Amazon – we’ll sell books online, even though users are still scared to use credit cards on the web. Their shipping costs will eat up any money they save. They’ll do it for the convenience, even though they have to wait a week for the book.
• Virgin Atlantic – airlines are cool. Let’s start one. How hard could it be? We’ll differentiate with a funny safety video and by not being a**holes.
• Craigslist – it will be ugly. It will be free. Except for the hookers.
• Google – we are building the world’s 20th search engine at a time when most of the others have been abandoned as being commoditized money losers. We’ll strip out all of the ad-supported news and portal features so you won’t be distracted from using the free search stuff.
• PayPal – people will use their insecure AOL and Yahoo email addresses to pay each other real money, backed by a non-bank with a cute name run by 20-somethings.
• Instagram – filters! That’s right, we got filters!
• LinkedIn – how about a professional social network, aimed at busy 30- and 40-somethings. They will use it once every 5 years when they go job searching.
• Firefox – we are going to build a better web browser, even though 90% of the world’s computers already have a free one built in. One guy will do most of the work.
• Twitter – it is like email, SMS, or RSS. Except it does a lot less. It will be used mostly by geeks at first, followed by Britney Spears and Charlie Sheen.

 

Society you crazy breed

Growing up in a Western society, we get told that we have to go to school. We need to learn about mathematics, society, science, geography etc. The better we know each of these subjects, the better grades we getter and the better school we can get into later. After we’ve finished school we should ideally apply for a university. The better university, the better job we can expect when we graduate. The better job we get, the more money we will make and the happier we will be. Sounds familiar? 

I got top grades, I went to a top university and I landed a top job in Paris. After about one year in this job I started having the feeling of disappointment. Was this it? Was this what I had been aiming for? I realized some brutal facts. Simply getting a good job wasn’t enough, I was in the bottom of the company hierarchy and had a corporate latter to climb. I also realized that being good is the equivalent of being more like a robot: working faster, being more disciplined, making less mistakes and working longer hours. On top of this, we sit down each day for hours, forcing our body to adjust to a very un-natural position. Instead of questining this way of spending our days, we bring in an ergonomists so that we can continue working but with less pain. How screwed up is that?

Ever since I was 5 years old, I’ve heard that I’ll be a business women. My surrounding picked it up because I was constantly selling things: rhubarbs that I had taken from our garden, fish that I had caught and objects that I had made out of wood. The decision to study business was therefore a natural and obvious choice for me. Thinking back today, selling the things and earning money wasn’t what I enjoyed the most. It was to pick the rhubarbs and make them look nicely wrapped, to fish the fish and to create the objects in wood together with my grandpa. It was also about forming relationships with other people and seeing them happy. I got shaped, like so many others, the way society wanted me to get shaped, not how I truly am. This isn’t anyones fault, it’s just the way the world works today.

We get told that by doing this and that, you’ll find happiness. Society has a list of things you must obtain before you’re able to live the happiest life you can live. It’s an illusion that happiness is about having the perfect career, family, house, body, grades etc. It’s in our nature as humans to never truly be satisfied, we also want more. A promotion at work, a new car or a trip can give us satisfaction and short-term happiness, but what happens after that? You want a new promotion, a better car and another trip. For me, I thought that a nice apartment in Stockholm, a good job and money would bring me happiness. The truth is, I was never living in the moment, in the NOW, therefore I could never really be happy. It’s all so simply, by looking for happiness we will never find it.

The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered: “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices his money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he doesn’t enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future: he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived”.