Maybe some people can fake it for five years. Their commitment to the stuff they do, you know, like Milli Vanilli.

But then you have your Clint Eastwood’s and The Smiths and the Dame Judi’s.

“Go ahead, make my seven thousand awesomely committed days, because I started something I couldn’t finish, my Shakespearean sister!”

Don’t Punch Me

But don’t you just want to punch people who say: “If you love what you do you never have to work a day in your life”? Great for those who love what they do. But please don’t punch me. I love what I do.

So, what’s another word for “work”? Labour? Toil? Slog? Drudgery? None of those words fit my experience of work anymore. In fact, work is precisely the wrong word.

I’m not sure what the best word is for doing what you’re passionate about every day. “Bitch”?

I certainly don’t want to take time away from it. Time away from what I love to do? The stuff I do?

These days the stuff I do mostly involves finding solutions to problems. Most of the problems relate to finding ways to make life better for people in developing countries. It also happens to involve a fair bit of running around in Satan’s finest conditions. It involves a fair bit of connecting people around the globe. And writing.

I love problem solving. I love helping others. The devil’s own conditions don’t bother me TOO much, although the Topless Insanity post would beg to differ. I love connecting people who can help each other. And I love writing.

I go a bit mad if I don’t write every day. I go a bit silly if I don’t eat salad each day too. I just make sure to get a bit of both every day, even if it’s just half a carrot or two paragraphs.

But hindsight is 20/20, ya’ know.

Some people grow up knowing they want to help others less fortunate. Others have told me they wanted to work in fair trade since they were teenagers. I grew up wanting to be a vet or an interpreter.

But I never became a vet or an interpreter.

And I ended up working in the developing world helping others—and loving it—in my 30’s.

Always was a bit slow. Coming to something late, however, does not make any of us less authentic than those who dreamed of doing the stuff they do since they were baby pandas. Susan Boyle anyone?

And for the first time ever I don’t have to struggle to be committed to the stuff I do. At least, not with my internal self.

It’s the same way that people who are naturally patient don’t have to think, “I wish I were more patient.” The thought of patience doesn’t even occur to them. They just are. People who are naturally un-shy don’t have to think about being un-shy, they just are too. Similarly, people who are naturally funny don’t have to try. The rest of us can only wish and wonder what it’s like to make others laugh without effort.

In other words, our innate qualities and talents simply are—an existence that can no more be denied than the sun. And if we don’t have them, we can no more fake these qualities than we can fake attraction to the wrong person.

Be the Best Damned Bitch in the World

When I was a teenager my Dad went off on one of his famous lectures again:

“I don’t care if you want to go and sit on mountains and meditate for the rest of your life, just make sure you’re the best damned mountain meditator in the world.”

Yeah right.

“And I don’t care if you want to be a beach bum, just make sure you’re the best damned beach bum in the world.”

Bet he wouldn’t have said that if I wanted to be a politician or a stripper.

Anyway, the fact that neither mountains nor beaches were of interest to me (hence there was no danger of me actually bumming on them forever) wasn’t the point. The point was to live an authentic and passionate life, whatever it is. And he has a point.

It’s not that life is too short, but it is that life is too short. To not have something truly bum-worthy to commit to. But I never understood that feeling of commitment to the stuff you do until five years ago. I certainly never felt that passion when working for multinational corporations.

I only came to know I could truly be committed to the stuff I do after I began to do it. No clairvoyant or careers counselor could have convinced me I’d enjoy or be good at the stuff I do now.

Genuine Commitment to the Cause

It was an odd realization when it hit me. “This is what it feels like to want to ‘work’.” It was about three months after arriving in Ghana, Africa, as a fresh volunteer and traveler in the developing world. Admittedly, I was still wearing rose-coloured glasses and I wasn’t exactly taxing myself. Everything was gritty, alive and punching me in the five senses all day long. It was hard not to be dazzled. Incidentally, I also began to like beaches in Ghana (says a girl from beachside Sydney, Australia).

But, five years later, the rose-coloured glasses are well and truly flung and my senses have acclimatized to routine overload—and I live 800 kms to the nearest beach. But I’m still here walking the walk. And I still feel satisfied.

After several years of trying and loving lots of different things, the common denominator was obvious. I realized that helping to make others’ life better was not only personally satisfying, but what I loved to do—without thinking, without struggle, and even without coffee.

In fact, it was so motivating that I was able to overcome my greatest fears to make sure I could keep doing it—that’s how much I wanted to commit.

Whether working in a fair trade organisation or as a teaching assistant in a tiny school in Kumasi or training disadvantaged people in South East Asia or helping small and struggling NGO’s find their feet or helping some of the most impoverished people I’ve ever known…helping others is the stuff to which I willingly commit—without coffee.

I can’t help it.

Of course there were “struggles,” but these struggles came from outside: context, people, power companies, naysayers, thieves, mosquitoes.

For example, electricity cuts suck on deadline days when you have to print receipts and pay craftspeople who rely on you to deliver so they can pay for stuff to live. Teachers beating small children with canes every three minutes while you’re trying to help those children overcome their fear of making a mistake in class, you know, so they don’t get caned, is another external hindrance. The only internal struggle then was how not to beat the teachers myself. Instead, one day I gathered all the canes together and threw them out the classroom windows. The only thing I faked that day was knowledge of the canes’ whereabouts, but not commitment.

No, you can’t fake this passion.

If you don’t have genuine commitment and passion for the stuff you do, you won’t do it.

You certainly won’t last five years. You won’t last through the power cuts, the water shortages, the regular illnesses, torturous conditions, or when someone or other tries to obstruct the stuff you do—or whatever shit happens in your line of work. Horse shit, I guess, if you’re a vet or a politician.

You must be committed to survive all that. And not just survive, but accept the sacrifices as well.

My sacrifices: Distance from family and friends (about 15,000 kms); distance from cinemas, malls, cafes, fresh coffee, galleries, magazines, books—about 800 kms. There is none of that. And then there is distance from doctors and medical help. Scary sometimes.

To do the stuff I do each day the driving force must come from within, not outside.

Does the driving force to do the stuff you do come from within?

Part II coming to a blog near you soon…

(Images: Rocket by Epic Fireworks Photos; Sparkle Motion by Just Jefa)