Everyone can learn self-awareness. Cultivate a positive attitude. Express gratitude. A karate master once said that if he were a garbage man, he'd be the best garbage man in the universe. Taking pride in even the most menial task creates a positive state of mind and opens you up to possibilities. "When open, our minds have tremendous power to receive ideas." Very insightful book about the art of making a living with zen philosophy. I can see very clearly the tremendous effort from the Author by putting his thoughts and understanding together to make this book. He is passionate and has been patient enough to have consistently working on this book for 4 years to complete writting the book. Thank you for his effort.

You already assume what Laurence G. Boldt has to say and expect from you! Your dedication, your self-respect, and your belief to make that final push into happiness. The Zen state is all about that, bliss and everlasting peace. Lccn 2009019516 Ocr ABBYY FineReader 11.0 (Extended OCR) Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.11 Ocr_module_version 0.0.14 Old_pallet IA12321 Openlibrary_edition In fact, nothing other than happiness matters that much. With all due respect to any career, you must remember that a job is nothing more than a way to earn a living. Putting it in front of everything will bring you in a position to beg, as we mentioned earlier. Transform your life with Zen The first half of this book argues that everyone has a purpose in life and we are responsible to pursue this purpose, for various reasons. Reading about the hero's journey was fascinating (incredibly so), and has made me consider reading Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. More than twenty years ago, I began this work with the conviction that people of all ages and professional levels were ready to embrace the challenge of creating work they truly love. Through good economic times and bad, I’ve seen this conviction borne out in the lives of countless dedicated individuals who have found their own ways to put their passions to work. The success of this book and, even more, the many letters and comments I’ve received from readers who’ve found it helpful in mapping their own journeys to fulfilling work have been truly gratifying. This revised edition has given me an opportunity to sharpen and clarify my thoughts on a number of topics. Considerable revisions have been made throughout. The entire text has been updated, and a lot of new material has been added. For those familiar with this book, the bibliography and most of the Web resources that appeared in its previous incarnations have been greatly expanded and put online (empoweryou.com), where they can more easily be kept current.Overcoming obstacles and making the best of a situation creates energy that you can use for greater achievements I actually liked the philosophy at start, which posits that currently we are in a "little king" model of control and deny, and we are conditioned that being good means following society's rules as opposed to creating the life we mean to live. But then we get into very simplistic and wrong "eastern wisdom good, western rationalism/religion bad"that makes you roll your eyes, since if anything social control and materialism is probably much greater in those societies than in the west. There's a lot of stuff about serving others, but if you are needing to read a career book, most of the time you aren't in any position to serve or think about grand service and love. In a chapter called "Vision Questing," Boldt provides startling statistics on living conditions throughout the world. The inclusion of these numbers serves to illustrate the limited perception with which we operate. While these types of moral lessons are not normally contained in a job manual, they are inherent to Boldt's. Limited awareness of the potential of those around you points to limited awareness of your own potential. You may take or leave Boldt's advice, but his diagrams and lessons will make a lot more sense and prove far more beneficial if you give his views an honest shot rather than dismissing them as unrealistic. This book helped me think about what it is that I truly do -- I am a consultant at heart - I love looking at problems, giving advice, and figuring out how to fix things.

I have been a Career Counselor . . . for the past ten years. In all of this time, I have not found a book that is as effective and well-rounded. . . . Your book has become a fixture in my career center. But beyond its appeal to me, I think it finally takes career education in the many directions necessary to establish, not only one's identity, but an assessment of what makes work meaningful to an individual. Few, if any, texts I've worked with in the past have accomplished this." Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2018-08-20 00:23:13 Associated-names Boldt, Laurence G. Zen and the art of making a living in the post-modern world Bookplateleaf 0006 Boxid IA1321622 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set china External-identifier Change is not easy, even if you're motivated. Transformation is the action of both spiritual liberation and art. I am writing this letter while enthusiastically making my way thru Zen and the Art of Making a Living and wanted to express my reaction and thanks. For three years, I have run the Women's Outreach Program for a community college in New Jersey, guiding women towards careers thru empowerment, education, and support. I am grateful that there are career counselor/authors out there, like yourself, who affirm and give flesh to the things we try to do on a daily basis. . . . Your work reminds me what the path means and [of] the necessity for tending my own psychic garden so that the fruits of a value-laden life will be mine. Thank you." It's hard to imagine that Boldt has forgotten anything in this massive, unconventional volume. He shows a strong understanding of the need for a new view of work in Western cultures. "So often today, white-collar workers are hired for their brains alone, blue-collar and service workers for their bodies only, as though these could be detached from the beings who possess them," he writes. "As a consequence, there is so much emotional pain around work in our culture. This pain spills over into virtually every aspect of life. Families, relationships, and communities are deeply affected by it. We can't really blame anyone for this, or at least, it does us no good to do so. Freedom can't be demanded from others—it must be created for ourselves."The best answers come from the heart, not the head.To play the game, you must understand the rules.Peace comes from within, not from other people.Wait for the perfect time to make a change and you'll wait forever.Fear of failure can stand in the way of your dreams.Until you find what you love, love what you do.Giving up is not an option. This is far more than a "how to" discussion, though. While the reader will discover how to get on the mailing list for federal job opportunities and how to write grant proposals for funding a nonprofit organization, he or she also will be treated to a beautiful essay explaining the Zen view that everyone is talented and knowledgeable. How often do we see a person, that we actually know personally, who have the impression that the whole universe is acting to satisfy his/her demands? – Apparently, not so often.

Zen tells us that if we want to be free to play, we must be done with the agitation of envy and shame. otherwise, we can be triggered, through prize and ridicule, into performing like trained monkeys -- without ever knowing how or why" Zen and the Art of Making a Living has been, for many years, a treasured and often referred to addition to my very selective library. It is that rare combination of the inspirational and the practical."It's a normal career book with a bunch of zen babble. You have the "philosophy" aspects which take up most of the book, but the actual career advice is just the usual "discover your values, make a list of your talents, etc" that you get in these books.