A few years ago I made up a new word: Jobcation. I don’t remember the exact origins of this creative little snippet of lexis, but I believe it occurred something like this…

First of all, I never wanted to be a teacher. When I started really seriously teaching, after I got my certification, I was still mostly spending time making music and only teaching part-time. So, in my head, music was always what mattered, and teaching was what I did to make money. To be totally honest, I didn’t really care about it at all. I’d waltz in to work every day, tired from a gig or practice the night before, and watch all my coworkers taking everything so very seriously. I’d wonder how they could possibly care so much. I mean, didn’t they have other things in their lives that mattered more than this? Didn’t they have some sense of self that went beyond their roles as teachers?

Then, as I gradually let go of the idea of making a living as a musician, I realized that if I was going to actually be happy I’d need to find the joy in what I was now spending most of my time doing – teaching. Let me tell you, I was carrying A LOT of resistance.

I started to become like my peers. The more I cared about my job, the more things about it frustrated me: lack of proper equipment, support, time, space, financial recognition. You name it, it was a struggle. I began to feel like I was giving away my energy. Energy that was rightfully mine, that should have been used on my creative projects. And with that came resentment. Every day I left work drained. But I cared about each and every student; if they weren’t making progress it was my fault. I cared about my co-workers. I cared about my school. I never said no to extra classes and would often leave work well after 9pm or even 10. After several years living this way I was beyond exhausted.

At that time I was living in Canada, so I decided to come to New Zealand for my first jobcation. Haha… I mean, I came to NZ for one summer and lived and worked. It was basically a working holiday in my home country. I quickly became super relaxed. New Zealand has a way of doing that to you. It doesn’t allow you to go fast.

A leisurely stroll to work looks like this…

When I hit the ground in Auckland at the start of that trip, I’d missed my connecting flight. I ran between the terminals and gasped at the info desk…. “Has the 8am flight to Wellington left yet? I’m supposed to be on it! … what should I do?” The response was a calm and happy “No worries luv, we’ll just pop ya on the next one.” Suddenly I remembered where I was. I sat and waited for the next flight for an hour, smiling the whole time. As I passed through an equally laid-back customs earlier that day they’d said “welcome home Em.” Good ol’ Kiwi conviviality and chill, full first names not necessary around here.

Needless to say, like it or not, NZ will certainly knock your pace-of-life back a notch. That summer I went from a crowded subway ride every morning, to a leisurely stroll to work beside the sea. My workplace also had no dress-code, and regular drinks and food provided by the boss. However, although the environment helped, it was not that which changed me – it just sort of happened.

When I got back to Canada, after five months in NZ, I felt different. It didn’t matter to me what anyone thought of me, it didn’t matter if the working conditions weren’t everything I wanted them to be. I’d sort of given up caring again, but in a totally new way. Suddenly I started to become a good teacher. A joyful one even. I loved each and every moment with my students, and with my peers. I went from being the “moody” teacher to the really calm one. I was present. I was also detached. Whatever happened didn’t matter. I helped my students as much as I could, but if they didn’t progress, I let it go. I did what I could to improve my workplace and shared my opinions, but if they didn’t happen, I let that go too. Being relaxed had become more important to me than literally ANYTHING and EVERYTHING else.

Do YOU?

That’s when I started using the term “jobcation”. My friends would tell me how they didn’t want to go to work the next morning and I’d say, “I’m not going to work, I’m going to my jobcation!” What I meant was, the place where, no matter what happens, I will have just as much fun as when I’m literally on vacation. Working started to become so much less stressful. It was play, not work. And I had very intentionally chosen it to be that way. The same exact presence and joy that had come with music was starting to come with teaching. I began to realize, it was not music that had brought me joy; the joy was coming from inside me. And I could create that feeling anywhere, anytime, by simply being in the moment. This was also largely the result of my newly found passion for meditation.

With that shift I attracted to myself some of the most profound teachers of my life; and those teachers happened to be my students. During that year I met some absolutely incredible humans. One became someone I’m certain will be a life long friend – a radiant young Polish woman who actually even followed in my footsteps and became an English teacher too!

A few others included: A retired but powerful female Mexican journalist who’d had holes shot into the side of her house in the middle of the night; a French woman who had written books about emotional intelligence, and was an expert and consultant in communication and negotiation; and a young Saudi doctor who had just left his country for the first time and married the only girl he’d ever dated. I spent hours and hours with these people, for many months.

The Saudi doctor and I had long, deep, frank conversations about religion. I established such trust with him that he felt he could share honestly with me and ask me anything about western culture and women. We even talked about sex and pornography. We compared Bible/Koran stories. If everyone on earth could sit and talk the way I did with him we’d never again have a religious or cultural misunderstanding. War would be over. He was extremely privileged, as am I, yet both of us met in full awareness of this fact, open to each other fully, and so grateful for our discussions.

The Mexican journalist taught me through stories of her lost loves, struggles with patriarchy, violence, and corruption in her culture, and the great risks she had taken in her career and life. At 60 years old she had left her country, alone, in search of a safer and more peaceful life where she was free to be absolutely true to herself. She was such an inspiration.

The French woman told me her stories of struggling to raise a disabled daughter all alone, her multiple relationships, and all that she had learned from them. We shared so much, and cried and laughed together many times.

At the end of our classes, all of these people expressed profound gratitude to me and told me how much I had impacted their lives and helped them. I’ve got no idea if they learned any English from me, which is what I was supposed to have been teaching them. I suppose that they did.

Tree of friendship

I have a beautiful glass ball hanging in my window that the French woman gave me. Inside it is a tree. This tree, she told me, represents all the connections and friendships I have made in my life that I will continue to carry with me. She had absolute resolute faith that I would be nothing but happy and successful in NZ, where I was planning to return permanently. She told me she had never known anyone like me, and I felt exactly the same way about her.

I believe these incredible students came to me then because for the first time in my life I was living in exactly the right time, the complete and utter present. They were all telling me stories I needed to hear. And apparently, I was doing the same for them. I actually started to feel excited whenever my boss told me I had a new student that week. I couldn’t wait to find out which incredible human I’d drawn to myself next!

With these sort of unconscious shifts, it’s never one moment that changes you, it’s a process, an accumulation of life lessons melding with things you’ve heard great spiritual teachers say over and over.

Suddenly everything just clicks, and that’s it, you’ve changed.

But, just to give you a little nudge in the right direction…

7 Ways to Make Work Feel Like a Holiday

1. Don’t take ANYTHING too seriously

Life is supposed to be fun. Yeah, that’s right, it is! You only get one. So, play! Enjoy it. Enjoy the people you get to interact with daily. Aren’t they curious and fascinating creatures?! Instead of getting down on people or being critical or judgemental, be open to them.

2. Don’t take ANYTHING personally

Nothing anyone else says or does is actually about you. Even if they directly attack you. People are constantly mismanaging and misdirecting their own emotions. The world is jam-packed with frustrated coworkers who wish they were somewhere else. Life in general just gets so much easier when you cease to be offended by things other people say and do. Equally so, when people are offended by things you say or do, it’s more often than not actually all about them! The world is also jam-packed with hypersensitive folks carrying the heaven burden of their expectations. I’m not saying be inconsiderate and neglectful of others feelings, but notice the people who often seem to be offended… isn’t it always the same people? So if someone gets a bee in their bonnet, don’t get one in yours too. Drop it and move right on back to your happy place.

Which brings me to…

3. Expect less

I don’t mean don’t expect people to do their jobs. But expectations are always a source of suffering. Has there ever been a time when expecting other people to behave a certain way or say a certain thing just consistently worked out for you? We can’t control others, so why do we delude ourselves into thinking we can?! It’s unpleasant for people to have expectations placed on them, and even worse when people constantly let us down. A happy jobcation requires allowing everyone the freedom to be themselves.

4. Remember that you are not your job

You are a multi-faceted and complex person called to this planet with a far greater purpose than your job, even if your job is humanitarian or social. And if you’ve started to believe you are your job, take a break, find yourself or rediscover yourself… so many of us never do that.

5. Care just the right amount

Detaching from your work can sometimes be the best possible thing for your actual productivity and performance. When you stop caring so much about the outcome of everything, and every little detail, you relax; and when you relax you allow flow and divine inspiration. When you’re relaxed, people like you better, things happen effortlessly, your brain works quickly, and you make fewer mistakes. So, yeah, that’ s right, I’m telling you to care a bit less! Don’t work harder, work (emotionally) smarter. Counter-productive as it may seem, I swear it works! Experiment a little.

6. Don’t think for a minute they couldn’t survive without you

One of the biggest ego traps I see people falling into is thinking that no one could do what they do. They can. Of course they can. The actual content of your work is in 99% of cases, easily done by someone else. You are not indispensable, nor do you need to be. Believing you are absolutely vital to your organisation is also putting a lot of pressure on yourself.

What can’t be replaced is your energy. And who would you rather be around more? Someone who is always calm and happy and easy to communicate with, even while they’re doing an intense amount of work, or someone who’s running around like a headless chicken venting their frustration? Be the cool kid and you’ll never have to worry about losing your job anyway!

7. Trust in your ability to find another job

When you know that you will always be able to find something else, it takes all the pressure off the job you’re currently doing. Believe in yourself. You’re a capable, competent and likeable human, you’ll find another job the minute you walk out the door. If you believe this about yourself, you will relax. Every day will be a holiday. But you really do need to believe it. And therein lies the real work.

I’m not saying that I never get stressed anymore. I do sometimes. But I’ve got much better strategies for managing my stress these days. I’m also not saying that I’m always present and that my life is only fun and games, but I definitely believe that it should be!

Who’s with me?!

Jobcation tomorrow anyone?