Who was it that said, “Follow your dream – unless it's the one where you're at work in your underwear during a fire drill…”?
Author Joseph Campbell’s advice was to “follow your bliss.” American painter Grandma Moses did that. She actually started painting at age 76, after arthritis forced her to give up embroidery. “If I hadn't started painting, I would have raised chickens,” she once said.
And I heard of a bus driver in Chicago who followed his bliss with some surprising results. He sings while he drives. That’s right... sings. And I don’t mean he sings softly to himself, either. He sings so that the whole bus can hear. All day long he drives and sings.
He was once interviewed on Chicago television. He said that he is not actually a bus driver. “I’m a professional singer,” he asserted. “I only drive the bus to get a captive audience every single day.”
His “bliss” is not driving a bus, though that may be a source of enjoyment for some people. His bliss is singing. And the supervisors at the Chicago Transit Authority are perfectly happy about the whole arrangement. People actually let other buses pass by so they can ride with the “singing bus driver.” They love it.
Here is a man who believes he knows why he was put here on earth. For him, it is to make people happy. And the more he sings, the more people he makes happy. He has found a way to align his purpose in living with his occupation. By following his bliss, he is actually living the kind of life he believes he was meant to live.
Are you following your bliss? When you do, you may discover that you are experiencing the kind of life you feel you were meant to live. And what’s more, you will be happy.
-- Steve Goodier
Image by Kevin Zolkiewicz