This week we all look forward to a holiday - even if it is for only one day.  Hopefully you have a picnic at the park, a barbeque, or just a quiet day planned to "kick back and relax."

I don't know about you, but I'm tired.  It's not so much the volume of work  - I've worked a lot longer hours before.  Maybe it's that I'm just getting older and can't quite maintain the workaholic frenzy that I used to in my younger days. Maybe it's that I own 2 houses now and I feel like they have to be in perfect condition. Maybe it's that I've lost some of the joy in my work in expecting a certain form of payment.

During my meditation time today I read a few lines from "The Prophet" (copyright 1923 by Kahlil Gibran, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Publisher) - they really helped me understand why I've become so tired lately:

"You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.

For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite...

"...Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.

But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life...

"...Work is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger..." (Excerpts from pages 25-28)

Aligned with Gibran's words were words for an exhausted David Whyte from a close friend:

"David, the antidote for exhaustion is not rest - it is wholeheartedness."

I realized my exhaustion was rooted in wavering wholeheartedness. I saw that I had begun to "work with distaste" rather than with love.  Resentful of pouring a hundred more hours into the TEN WEEKS Webinars - with hundreds more ahead - when not a one had been sold.  Critically questioning why I subject myself to the risks and costs of running a fee-only financial planning firm when, financially, I don't need to.  Fantasizing about the 'simple life' when my current home and cabin are grounded in the natural world that I love.

"...if you cannot work with love...it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple..."  This morning these words reminded me of the truth that that I work because I love what I do and the gifts I've been given. All my 'egoic stories' of what 'should be' only rob me of the peace and love I feel when wholeheartedly engaged in my work.

On this holiday, sandwiched in the middle of this work week, may Gibran's words remind you, as they have me, that, indeed, "Work is love made visible."   May we all see that work is not something onerous, but "that in keeping yourself with labour, you are in truth loving life."

What better way to celebrate our freedom than to return to our work with joyful wholeheartedness?

Your fellow traveler,

Paul