The Little Things
September 28, 2015

“You didn’t choose a very lucrative career, did you?” someone said to me a week ago as I was talking to them about life as a counselor.

I laughed and said “Absolutely not!” and then after a second I said “Well- I guess it depends how you define lucrative.”

While it’s certainly true that the career choice I’ve made isn’t highly profitable in the financial sense, there are other ways in which I feel deeply rich, and there are ways that it has been highly profitable in my life.

Being a counselor has changed my life. In the process of getting my master’s degree, my own life went through quite the transformation process. I learned new skills, new ways to process information, and learned a whole new vocabulary, and I could talk for hours about what this changed in my life! To say that I felt like a stronger, more confident, healthier person at the end of my master’s is an understatement.

Counseling office

There’s also a richness that comes from learning each individual story, being challenged by situations that I might encounter at work, and getting to see things finally click for people as they move towards healthier living. I am SO very rich when it comes to my job- something that I don’t take for granted.

Some people are poor quote

As I was thinking about this conversation, I started thinking about operating from a place of richness and fullness (compared to operating from a place of “lack of”).

As humans we tend to be drawn to the “lack of” in our life instead of the “presence of” that we have. We tend to dwell on the things that we don’t have and allow that to dictate mood and feelings, experiences, relationships, etc… The thing is: we don’t have to do this! While it might be the automatic way we look at things or process life, we aren’t bound by that, and we can intentionally switch to seeing the “presence of” and the richness of things instead (or at least maintaining a healthy balance between the two!).

Hiking Barr Trail

I’m not rich financially being a counselor, but there is a beautiful depth and richness from my career- and from so many aspects of my life. I am rich in life- it just depends on how I look at it.

Would you join me in the journey of recognizing more of the “presence of” instead of “lack of” in life?

Now it’s your turn to share! What are you “rich in” in your life?

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2 responses to “Rich In Life…”

  1. Abby @ BackAtSquareZero says:
    September 29, 2015 at 6:21 pm

    Same here with elementary school teaching.