Work Doesn’t Have to Be Hard

When we think of “work,” we may think of a job, or we may believe it has to be hard. But look at the definition again – work is…activity in which one exerts strength or faculties to do or perform something.

As Latinas, growing up, we may have seen people around us (such as our family) doing work they did not enjoy because they had to. Matter of fact, we may have been directly taught that work was something unpleasant and unenjoyable, but just something that one had to do.

But we have the ability (and the blessing!) to be able to choose what we do, how we spend our time and where we put our energy. This goes not just for how we support ourselves and put food on the table, but also for our other “work” endeavors.

Remember when I interviewed Norma Elia Cantú (Professor of English at UT-San Antonio), she shared with us that her father never really understood what she did for work. He was amazed that she got paid for reading and writing and talking to people about it.

When I was still in school, I remember someone said to me, find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life… So it’s a bit of surprise when someone puts it like that (but I understood what she meant).

Now, please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not suggesting that “work” is always playful and a celebration. There’s no way around hard work, but it doesn’t have to be drudgery.

So YES! Do the work. There will always be things that have to get done, and they may not all be things that are the most interesting or exciting. However, for the most part, we get to choose how we spend the majority of our time, and this is amazing.

In short: Work can be painful and difficult, or it can be joyful and life-affirming.

Which is it for you? Rocio Cordoba (Executive Director of California Latinas for Reproductive Justice) said when you are doing something you are passionate about doing, work transcends from labor into a joy in making a difference.

What do you do call “trabajo”? What did you learn from your family? How do you approach work today, and what do you teach younger people who look up to you?

Join the conversation! Enter your comment below…

Guest Blog: When Hard Decisions are Seen as a “Betrayal”

Carlos “Art” Nevarez shares with us his story about the varied meanings of “betrayal”:

When my 3 yr. old was diagnosed with a rare ocular cancer I was faced with my first real test of values and faith ever.  My wife was bathing him one night when she noticed a “weird” white reflection inside the pupil; we took him to an eye doctor the next day, who sent us to a retinal specialist that same afternoon.

He did a battery of tests and said he couldn’t diagnose the problem till some test results came back.  I was a featured speaker at a conference that took place the next day — so I flew to San Francisco on Wednesday planning to return home to hear the results on Friday.

I had voice mail from my wife waiting when I landed, saying that she had to run our baby to a children’s hospital for further tests.  By the time I reached her that afternoon she had the news that this was Retinal Blastoma.

The cancer is rare, the hospital asked our permission and flew in a team of specialists from Boston to do further tests on Thursday — I wanted to fly back, but my wife insisted that there was no sense in missing my speech since there was nothing to be done till the specialists concluded their analyses.  Those are faith-trying times — whether one believes in God or not — but even more they are relationship trying times.

Thursday night they told me they wanted to operate early Friday morning, they felt the cancer was contained and if they took care of the problem it would not spread — if they waited any longer — there was a possibility that the cancer would travel through the ocular nerve to the brain stem and spread to the other eye, and potentially every where else.  They felt there were minutes, not hours to deliberate.

When I landed I rushed to the hospital, my wife and I met with the team of Doctors, all eight of them concurred that the best thing to do was to extract the eye; they felt if the eye was removed they had a 99.99% chance of containment–any other avenue meant significantly less.  Me?  I’m the guy that sees the glass half-full.  I was relieved.

I had agonized for days about how my life would be without my little guy.  And I knew so many people that had wonderful, meaningful lives with just one eye.  The news was amazing to me and I couldn’t wait to say yes.   My wife was sick about it — she couldn’t think — so she told me to make the choice, she couldn’t bear to deal with the situation.  I told the doctors to proceed as recommended.

I have burnt in my memory the look of betrayal my wife had when I told her I had approved the surgery.  Many years later … and a divorce … she tells me that she cannot forgive how I could coldly make a choice to tear out an eye from my child’s face.  I had betrayed her.  She felt that I had not shown the proper remorse.  She felt betrayed by me; She felt betrayed by God — and by anything living.  She checked out on life.

As I contemplate my life, I find myself wondering how lonely she felt, as she felt her trust in me betrayed.  Yes, it is true that there wasn’t much of a choice, and yet the one choice was so devastating to her that even though it was the only reasonable choice, and it was a choice she couldn’t make herself — it was a choice made by someone she trusted would never do anything to hurt her and her children.

As our relationship deteriorated there was no way to repair the lost trust.  Family and therapists attempted to help her see that this was not betrayal at all — and I often wondered how I could reach across the ocean of darkness she set sail upon.  Her ship never came back to shore.

Carlos

P.S. He’s doing great … he’s a tall, skinny 15 year old that can’t get enough Guitar Hero or World of Warcraft … every time we get to go mountain biking together I take time to remember that sometimes the betrayal is only in the eye of the beholder.

Work It

There are a multitude of definitions of what work is, and probably an equal number of meanings of being a “worker.” As Latinas, it seems there is always more work to do. We are often not only the primary caregiver in our households (or at least responsible for taking care of some others around us), we are also employees and/or students, or perhaps run our own businesses!

Further, many of us volunteer our time and resources in various efforts to give back to the community. And, of course, there’s always work to be done around the household – cleaning, organizing, and upkeep, at the least!

So how do we choose how much of our time and energy goes into “work” and how much time do we spend NOT “working”? When was the last time you stopped to ask yourself if the work you’re doing is the best use of your time? For example, is it more worthwhile to clean your house or spend time on a child’s school project? The answer might vary depending on the circumstances.

One definition of work is “activity in which one exerts strength or faculties to do or perform something” such as “sustained physical or mental effort to overcome obstacles and achieve an objective or result,” “the labor, task, or duty that is one’s accustomed means of livelihood,” or “a specific task, duty, function, or assignment often being a part or phase of some larger activity” (from Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary at www.merriam-webster.com).

I would bet that many of you do LOTS of different kinds of work and may find it hard to rest! I know that I myself often get pulled into the everyday motions of “getting things done” and lately have had to pull back to determine what actions are most efficient and productive and when and how do I also want to take my “time off”?

While we venerate hard workers, and we certainly want to promote a good work ethic, sometimes in this country in particular, we work way more than we might enjoy because we feel we have to “get somewhere.” So let’s celebrate a task well done, but also know when to stop working.

We’ve spoken with interviewees who take care of their parents, their children and their siblings. Other interviewees have started and built successful businesses, even during tough emotional times. You might recall that Maria de Lourdes Sobrino of Lulu’s Desserts shared with us that she threw herself into work as an escape when going through a tough divorce. And other interviewees have changed careers over the course of their lifetime, shifting the work to which they dedicated themselves. Both Elena Bjorkquist and Nancy Rodriguez are interviewees that have had many different kinds of work during their careers.

But whatever we WORK on, let’s make sure it’s something we can do with joy and purpose. Many (or most!) of our interviewees emphasized the need to find your passion in your work and to spend time finding what it is that you really love in your work life.

We’ll be discussing all these items as the month goes on. Until then, work it, girl!

Congratulations to Sotomayor!

Thursday, August 6, 2009, was an historic day! In the same year we for the first time have a black President of the U.S., we now (because of this same President!) now have a POWERFUL Latina Supreme Court Justice. This is a huge moment in our history. (I can’t even express to you how monumentous this is — OMG!!!)

Here is a woman that will be on the highest court in the land for the rest of her life (or until she decides to step down) and this could (or will — hopefully!) change the way the county treats ALL of the population from a legal perspective.

Let’s remember a few of the words Ramona Romero, President of the Hispanic National Bar Association, which she shared in the panel, including:

“[P]art of the reason that the nomination for a new Supreme Court Justice is so important is because, in the ultimate analysis, the Supreme Court, as the highest court of the land, is the end of the road for those who seek justice.”

and

“We believe the nomination and confirmation of Judge Sotomayor will contribute to making the concept of equal justice under law, the words that are emblazoned on the façade of the Supreme Court, “Equal justice under law,” a reality for all Americans.”

And now she is in the position we all hoped for!!! [Yes, I do realize I'm using excessive exclamation points in this particular post.]

Recall that in the last 50 years we have thought these kinds of things (a black President? a Latina Supreme Court Justice?) would NEVER have happened. While we can still see that there are ways in which under- represented populations are treated differently than those in the mainstream culture (and we can work together to change the way this happens), we can still CELEBRATE this moment.

Remember in the I Have A Dream speech, that Martin Luther King Jr. longed for the day that people would be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.

And we’re getting closer! Are the struggles over? Have we “arrived”? No, there will always be things we need to work on and things that we, as a society, can improve.

But, if we can dream it, we can do it. Did Sonia believe she would ever be a member of the Supreme Court? I don’t know (but I hope to ask her some day!)

So I, for one, am exceedingly excited and proud and grateful.

Congratulations, Sonia!!!

August Recommendations

Marcela Landres is the author of the e-book How Editors Think. She is an Editorial Consultant who specializes in helping Latinos get published and was formerly an editor at Simon & Schuster.

Check out her webpage at: www.marcelalandres.com.

	Make Your Life Prime Time: How to Have It All Without Losing Your Soul by Maria Celeste Arraras (Atria) The Emmy Award winner shares wisdom gained from juggling family, love, and a career in the cutthroat word of television.
	Migrations: And Other Stories by Lisa Hernandez (Arte Publico) A collection of stories about Latinas whose work–on the job, at school, or at home–is never done.

Forgiveness Is a Release

Betrayal is not a feeling; it’s a judgment.  It’s what you tell yourself about what someone did.  The stories we tell ourselves often come up again and again and what’s remarkable is that we have the power to change them.

When someone “betrays” us, we may feel hurt, confused, disappointed, angry and a multitude of other emotions, but to call something “betrayal” is to place a judgment on someone else about what they did and why they did it!

Often when we use a word such as “betrayal” we suggest that the action taken by another person was done specifically AGAINST us, but rarely is an action taken against another person – it’s all done for a person’s internal reasons.

Now, this is not to say that the consequences of someone’s actions may not cause incredible pain for another.  And further, an action taken by someone else certainly can change a relationship (see prior posts), but the act someone takes is not about “getting” to someone else.

Think back to all the classic stories where the hero or heroine is in angst because he/she feels the need or desire to do something but is afraid to hurt someone else.  Rarely do these stories turn out well because there is no way to “win.”

If we’re so tied to what the consequences will be for another, it’s rarely easy to see what the best outcome is for US.  However, if we think about ourselves, and the consequences on our relationships, we will often have a more balanced view.  NOTE:  I am NOT saying to act purely selfishly, but rather NEITHER to act simply for the benefit of another.

But we all take actions for our own internal reasons and we have to pay the price for how our actions reflect on us as individuals.

Therefore, whether you are the betrayer or the betrayed, the traitor or the victim, we cannot leave this topic without talking about forgiveness.  I love the following definition of “forgive” — To renounce anger or resentment against.

Forgiveness is for US, not the other person.  What forgiveness does is allow us to release our judgments about why a person took an action and let go of their hold over our emotions, well-being and peace.

Of course, this doesn’t mean a relationship will go back to how it was before, but if we hold on to the bitterness, the only one it hurts is us.  So let go, mujer, of things that may have burned you in the past, and let’s move forward together.

I know that I’ve been on the receiving end of what many people would call “betrayal” in the past, but I no longer have any resentment against these people.  Why would I?  It would only hurt me.  What HELPS me is to heal, and let go.

So, for us Latinas, who tend to have strong relationships, and can sometimes get involved in drama in our personal lives, keep these lessons in mind when talking about La Vendida…