What looks like bad work to you? It can be a very personal thing – I was surprised when I told people about leading Redeem the Commute, and they said, “I’m glad someone is doing it, but especially glad it’s not me.”

I watched a TV show lately about a tow truck driver – it showed him going about his work in the middle of the night, doing a job many wouldn’t want. But he said he’d tried multiple jobs, hated them all – and then found the towing business and it just fit. He’d found his passion for work, even though other people would hate it working those late nights, alone, at risk and dealing with mechanical work.

There are definitely bad jobs out there – some are really awful, which became apparent with media coverage, for example, of the textile industry in Bangladesh.

Some jobs aren’t terrible themselves, they are just a bad fit.

And there are some good jobs that we see in the wrong light – something about us means they are less than they should be. We might think they’ll be much more than they are, or we might think too highly of ourselves to do certain kinds of work, even though they are good.

Question: What’s the worst job you ever had? What made it so bad? Was it bad for everyone, or just you?

Acknowledgements: Tim Keller, Every Good Endeavour and Work & Rest

Ryan Sim - July 1, 2013

Monday - A New Idea - Knowing

We'll look this week at the difference between knowing someone, and knowing about someone. We'll use celebrity stalking cases to illustrate this. One person was obsessed with Sheryl Crow, sneaking backstage to meet her and calling her his “spiritual twin.” A pizza delivery man was convicted of stalking actress Gwyneth Paltrow. Like many stalkers, he tried to reach her by going to the home of her parents. One was stalking Mel Gibson…claimed that god told him to pray with Gibson, and that’s all he was trying to do. Another was obsessed with tennis star Anna Kournikova. He decided that if he took off all his clothes, swam across Biscayne Bay to her house, climbed up on her deck and shouted, “Anna, save me!” he’d win her heart. He executed the plan perfectly except for one tiny mistake — he swam to the wrong house, was arrested and sent to a psychiatric institution. This would have been terrifying for the real people being stalked. But despite that we are tempted to laugh, because the stories are so far from reality we know. What they have in common is that these people think they know these celebrities, and can help them, love them. Some will memorize every stat about an athlete, an actor’s every appearance in film and television, and obscure facts. They know all about someone, but don’t know them, even if they think they do or should. We asked people on the street if they ever met someone famous, and if that person was like they expected. Question: Have you ever met someone after years of learning about them? How was it different? What’s the difference between knowing about someone, and knowing them?

Related Topics: God, Knowing | More Messages from Ryan Sim | Download Audio

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