When you were a child the world was your playground. What you wanted to do when you grew up was always exciting, fun and at the young impressionable age, your dream seemed realistic. But as we transitioned to adulthood, things change. We get bombarded with the to do’s and demands of paying bills, raising a family etc. Just surviving becomes the mandatory, and our dreams, and the wouldn’t it be nice to’s, get pushed aside.

When I was a child I wanted to be an artist and writer. While all the other children were chasing each other on the playground, I would escape into my sketchpad and poetry book.  Ask yourself what did you want to be when you were a child?

For me, like so many people, I fell victim to societies demands. When it was time to go to college I “had” to pick a career. Society had taught me that artist’s “starve,” and the chances of me being Picasso or Shakespeare was an impossible feet. I threw in the towel on my childhood dreams and pursued a career in advertising marketing. After all, commercial artists make money.

I dove into my career the way I dive into everything in my life, I gave it everything I had. I successfully climbed the corporate ladder, by age 27 I was making almost 6 figures. How is it that all of the success felt so shallow? Our culture trains us to go to school, get good grades, get a job, make boat loads of money and after all this it will equal happiness. This is the magic equation for a happy life. Right!

Or is it? How many of us suffer through jobs that we hate? We show up to work, shuffle through the tasks and retire to our homes exhausted in the evening. We spend almost a third of our life working, why do so many of us choose a career we are unsatisfied in? For me it was because of my fear of not making enough money.

After months of reflection, I realized I took the job in advertising because my high school art teacher said, “If you want to make it in the world as an artist you have to be an art director.” I made the choice at age 16 to take a job for the money. She was right; I made immense amounts of money, but my soul felt bankrupt.

So many of us stay in this numb static state. We live our entire lives only to wake up at the end and regret staying on auto-pilot. We all have the choice to reclaim our happiness. Life is to short to do anything that we do not enjoy.

I realized this, and as a result three years ago I left the corporate world on a mission to find my happy. I tapped into what I wanted to do as a child, and the more I let my inner child have a voice the more my writing true artistic self came out. Today, I write and design everyday and as a result I am fulfilled and would you have it I am making more money then I did in corporate. Because when we do what we love, we are living from our heart. And when you live your purpose, money is abundant because the universe will thank you for honoring your true self. Imagine doing what you love every day of you life.

You can always tell when someone is doing what they love to do. When you watch a famous actor or musician perform it often takes you away into their own world.  You are moved by their performance. When people do what they love they move other people in their presence. When I go places I always ask proffesionals why they got into the carrear they are in. Just last week, I asked my dentist at TenderCare, a Dentist in Gladstone, OR, why he went into dentistry. He told me, when he was little he always had a great expierence at the dentist’s office. He wanted to help other people and help them have confident smiles.

After all isn’t that what we all strive for, confidence and the ability to smile because we are living our dreams daily. When you tap into what you loved to do as a child, the possibilities of living a fulfilled abundant life are endless.

-Photo by nhi.dang

- Written by  Shannon Kaiser