But What Now?

Ok, I owe the title of this post to Barbara Winter, the woman who wrote the book!

This book was published in 1993 and it is still being reprinted and sold on Amazon. That’s how good this book is. It doesn’t even need to be updated. The subtitle is “Winning Ways for Creating Work That You Love.” I’m there.

I actually purchased this book around the time it was published, which, interestingly, was also around the time I started working for the organization I still work for 16 years later. Hmmm. What happened? First, I didn’t read the book. I knew I wanted to change, but I was focused on other things then. One of them was changing my career. So, ok, I was making a very big change, but I still had a job.

Now, 16 years later, I am looking at working for another 10 months at this organization. And I am elated. In fact, I’m very impatient. I want to leave today. But, it’s ok, I know I’m close and being close I am even more motivated to really look inside and learn what it means for me to be “joyfully jobless!”

Barbara Winter, a self-described personal growth junkie, describes letting go of a friend who only wanted to complain and criticise day after day. She realized that he was the only person she knew at the time who was not doing any personal development work. In the 70′s, she moved to California from a small town in southern Minnesota to find that if she wanted to she could attend a different seminar every night of the week.

And she loved it. She soon started her own seminar “Making A Living Without A Job,” and she has been doing it ever since. Barbara Winter followed her bliss.

I am revisiting her book about 15 years after purchasing it. I knew not to sell it with the hundreds of other books I’ve sold over those years. I’m only a fraction of the way into it, but already I’m really feeling pumped up by what she’s saying.

On page 20, Barbara asks the following questions,

“What would a balanced lifestyle include?
Where would you live?
How much time would you devote to working?
What non-working activities are important to you?
What people would you spend time with?

What personal goals have you neglected that would become a priority again?
How would you express your values through your work?
Where would you volunteer time and resources?
How would you be involved with a cause or community?
How would your family or other significant people be included?
How would your daily life become richer?
What about your current life would you eliminate immediately?
What rewards other than money would you expect to receive from your work?
What skills do you most enjoy using?
How can you incorporate more positive experiences into your life?
What material things would you acquire? Give up?”

Her questions are positively energizing and completely genius at the same time. As I scan the rest of the book I find it’s filled with this level of exploration. Naturally, every one of us will have our own answers to these questions. Barbara fills some of the pages of the rest of the book writing about the experiences of others who have chosen a life without a job. She offers guidance on how we can change our paths and follow our own bliss.

Barbara has been publishing a newsletter about being “joyfully jobless” since then, so there is where we will find our updates to this 1993 edition, although as a beginning exploration, the book has not aged.

You can visit Barbara Winter’s website at http://www.barbarawinter.com.