I am a soloist. What that means is, I work for myself, by myself; I have no staff. For me, that’s a wonderful thing, because I enjoy what I do, and I do it with nearly complete autonomy. I have discovered the ultimate way to integrate living and working. And when you can do that, you never have to go to work in the traditional sense. At least that’s the theory. Film maker, Baz Luhrman, once said, “Our work is life, and our life is work. There is no difference. One must feed the other.” I believe that. The two must exist in harmony if we are to be happy. And we are alive for only one reason: to be happy. What other reason could there be?
When you experience the enormous gulf separating working and living that exists in much of today’s society, you can only achieve minimal happiness at a maximum cost. The working part of you, the part separated so completely from the living part, is not having a good time, and that impacts everything and everyone around you. If you love the work that you’ve chosen, if you’re passionate about it, then you’ve blurred the line between working and living; and when you get good at blurring the line, you begin to eradicate it altogether. To be a soloist you must have work that you enjoy—it’s mandatory for long-term success. It’s even more beneficial if you have a passion for what you do. Work becomes life. Life becomes work. I’ll never understand why people will toil for a lifetime at a job that they dislike, where virtually everyday is drudgery. Of the myriad opportunities available to us in America, surely most of us can find a vocation that provides a reasonable wage, while leaving our souls intact.
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