You Know You Love Your Work When...

Due to a hard to come by internet connection today, this post and the previous one combine for a first time ever DOUBLE POST!

Tucked away in a little cove is a small town called Estero de Platano, population 400, where  I am charged with the task of implementing the first water treatment system.

I spent a week and a half planning and designing the system, and have since worn many hats. On site, I am the design engineer and construction manager. From there, I frequently switch between plumber, construction worker, community organizer, and educator. I saw a lengthy YouTube video (which I can't find right now) that hits the nail on the head: "beyond simple tasks, for work to be enjoyable and productive, money ceases to be a motivator. Interestingly, it has been shown that an increase in money earned results in a decrease in productivity. People are actually motivated by 1. Being Challenged, 2. Feeling Useful, and 3. Having Self Direction."

Those factors are quite general, so to be more specific: You know you love your work when… 

-          You can work twelve hour days and weekends without being paid and love every minute of it.

-          It goes to help every person in the community and makes you accepted as a local.

-          You can skip your lunch break to fish and swim in the sea.

-          It earns you all sorts of titles and nicknames (to be saved for a later post).

-          You can surf beforehand and afterwards

-          and mind-surf during…

-          Singing while working is never discouraged.

-          Nobody gives a stern warning for napping after lunch.

-          It starts to make you village-strong.

-          You can be shirtless from dawn to dusk.

-          It challenges your mind and your body.

-          What you’re building will stand for decades.

-          Your hands begin to callous, making you feel manly.

-          You can walk off and take a break, because it is low tide and time to search for octopus: your favorite animal in the whole wide world.

-          Kids are happy to spend their out of school vacation days at your work site, be called hormigas and be put to use.

-          It gives you keys to the town and access to the president.

-          Your Spanish improves (especially in hardware vocabulary!)

-          There is the chance of unearthing mysterious archaeological treasures.

-          Buying materials requires hitchhiking (there’s no better way to travel than in the backs of pickups; an adventure every time.)

-          You can only laugh and shudder to think of your previous job in a cubicle in a windowless Cold War era building, burning through millions of tax-payer dollars at a hierarchical war company in remote, western Fort Worth.

-          You never have to drive to work, because your commute is a 5 minute walk stroll.

-          Your project continues along just fine during a power outage because it doesn’t require electricity (so much for electrical engineering, eh?)

-          It’s always happy hour because huge beers cost only a dollar; anytime, anywhere.

-          Your lovely fiancé is able to spend a month with you to share the experience firsthand.

Below: Estero de Plátano and my view from work:

Found this strong little guy hiding in a hole

My hard-working team of hormigas (ants)

Ruth, learning to use Teflon tape

Certainly I know these are special circumstances that took luck and gusto to find, and they will not last forever. But I also know a similar volunteering placement is something I can always find and come back to, any time I decide to put excuses aside and make the simple arrangements to break away. If you want to, you can do it too.

Building La Sistema de Purificacion de Agua en Estero de Platano has let me love life even more than I already did before. Besides the wonderful benefits of being by the ocean and surrounded lively, welcoming people, what makes the work so enjoyable are those three key ingredients: being challenged, having self direction, and feeling useful. This is what you find when you use your combinations of skills to work as a volunteer in a country that really needs it. The rewards far outweigh the sacrifice. Actually, besides missing all you people, I’ve forgotten what my sacrifices have been.

Believe it or not, this is not an entirely self-centered post.

If I’ve said enough to make you want to leave your job, leave the country, and go volunteer, then JUST DO IT. If in your heart you want to, but doubts about your personal situation are surfacing as you read this, please enlighten me on why you think you can’t, so I can strike your reasons down. (Seriously, leave a comment) I know most people feel they are in no position to do something like this, but judging by comments, emails, and other correspondence, it seems that many want to. Perhaps it will secure you to know what I think are the minimum requirements:

• You have at least one skill.
• You have passion for something (or at least the potential for having it).
• You have a high-school education, and have earned or can possibly earn a wage at something.*

*If you are of the privileged few in this world who had the chance to earn a University degree at a developed 1^st
world nation, you far exceed the minimum requirements.

Perhaps the willingness to bear a cold shower when necessary will be required of you. Then again, perhaps not; maybe you are the one to take on the nickname “dirty gringo”.

I’d love to hear what you think. Also, comment if you love your work and why.