One and the same

As I go about my work and life, I often think back on Rumi’s guidance: Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.

These simple words are better than any advisement you could get from a career counselor or therapist. We all have things in our life that we are passionate about or bring us great joy. Things that we do that we don’t consider work and that make the hours fly by because we aren’t thinking about the clock but are absorbed and fully engaged in the task at hand. If you do what you love, everything else seems to figure itself out.

In my teen and college years I worked at a home furnishings and garden shop called the Einerlei (pronounced eye-ner-lye). This strange sounding German word apparently means “one and the same.” The owners chose the name because they wanted their work and play to be one and the same thing — all one, indistinguishable, having equal importance and value.

I have always loved this word and the meaning behind it. We should all be so lucky to find our own Einerlei.