I had some great comments and questions that were generated by the last couple of day's discussions.  We have been talking about how to simplify our lives by learning how and when to say "No."  I'll answer one question here and a few more tomorrow. 

"This is awesome, AJ! But………how do you incorporate what you CAN do with what you MUST do to survive if you are not one of the fortunate ones who can make a living doing what you do best?  Ann C"

Making deep changes in life isn't something that happens easily or over night. Ann is addressing the difference of dealing with today's reality, vs reaching the ideal that I would like to someday work towards.   It is important to recognize without paying the bills, life doesn't happen very comfortably!  So it's not insignificant to maintain "what is" while working towards "what could be someday." 

To begin transitioning to "some day," you might take an inventory of your gifts, interests and skills.  What do you do where time just flies by?  What activity leaves you more emotionally energized at the end of the day (even though you might be physically tired)?  Can that translate into a career?  What schooling or experience would it require?  Have you even researched what kind of fields your gifts would fit into?  If your passion won't work into a career or you wouldn't want it to, how could you incorporate using those gifts in an activity that you enjoy either as a hobby or even as an outreach or ministry? 

While many of us know what marketable skills, degrees or experience we have, very few of us have taken the time to identify our spiritual or relational gifts.  It is these gifts that provide the sustaining motivation to continue doing a job for a lifetime.  Do you like to organize things, people or activities?  Do you like to identify a need and create a program that fulfills that need, without your having to run the program?  Do you like to run the programs that someone else has created and prepared for ease of use?  Do you love to teach?  Do you enjoy being behind the scenes and serving by doing the chores no one else wants to do? 

Let me use the person who loves to teach as an example.  She may not necessarily want to be a schoolteacher, but  loves to teach others any skill that she's learned herself.  If you love creating crafts, would you also enjoy teaching others how to do them?  Would you enjoy teaching children computer skills after school?  Perhaps you would love to teach older adults how to get on the internet, so they are less isolated and depressed.  You may wish to do these activities as a voluteer outreach through your church or local community center, or you may even find that you have the desire to make it a part time business!  

Do you see how many ways you could take the areas you excel in and use them to bring joy to yourself while benefitting others?  If you identified these areas in your life, do you think you could find a way to embrace and utilize them in the midst of your current, less-than-ideal-job to make it more fulfilling and fruitful?  When you know who you were created to be it becomes quite easy to take any ordinary task and transform it into one with great meaning and eternal value.

I will bring this back around to the topic we're discussing and ask you a rather pertinent and personal question.  How can you say "yes" to any new activities you've discovered fit with your spiritual, emotional or skill gifts that God gave you, if you can't learn to say "No" to the demands you've allowed others to inappropriately make on your time?  When you say "No" for this reason, isn't a selfish act, it's an act of selflessness, in that you will serve others and God more effectively if you do it in the activities you were created to do!

Audrey Jeanne Roberts