Do What You Love
February 29th, 2008, by Shelley Riutta
This is a picture of my dog Niyo this past summer at my parents cottage. He is looking up at me and barking because he wants me to throw this thing called a flying squirrel (it is like a canvas frisbee) into the lake so he can swim out and get it. He LOVES doing this and could do it until my arm fell off from throwing it! Dogs are good teachers for us because they gravitate towards what is fun and then do it till their hearts content (or until their owners arm falls off:) It is so simple for them to follow what they love. We too did this when we were children.
I saw a perfect example of this when I was visiting Duke Botanical Gardens in North Carolina last May. I was sitting on a hill watching some kids running around and playing at the bottom of the hill. (I actually have a picture of these kids by my article “Are You Having Fun Yet?”) They were having so much fun and I had fun just watching them. Nearby where I was sitting there was a group of teachers and kids sitting on the grass–it was fairly quiet and the kids looked quite bored. I could see the kids looking longingly at the kids playing at the bottom of the hill. One of the kids couldn’t stand it anymore and started slinking away from their group to move towards the playing kids. As he moved away one of the teachers started calling his name “Jimmy, you get back to the group.” Jimmy conveniently didn’t hear the teacher and kept moving towards the playing kids. The teacher yelled louder “Jimmy, get back here now!” Just as she said that he broke away and began running towards the kids. Inside I was saying “Go Jimmy Go!”
The teacher didn’t realize that he wasn’t doing anything wrong he was just going to where the fun was. Kids are innately drawn to what is fun, to what brings them Joy. But you can see the dynamic of him being punished for following this will have an impact on him as he grows up. Instead of following what he loves he will instead try to please those around him with what he thinks they want him to do. Can you see how people can get sidetracked from this innate mechanism of following what you love. It could be messages from parents or teachers that communicate that following what you love takes you away from what they think you are supposed to be doing.
Notice if this is a dynamic inside of you. You may have had so many years of not following what you love that you forgot what those things even are. Or you know what you love but you don’t give yourself permission to do these things more often. See if you can reconnect with what you love to do give yourself permission (like Niyo does) to do these things to your hearts content! What do you love to do? I would love to hear from you! I love to DANCE, SING, LAUGH, WRITE, CUDDLE…………………………………………..