Wanted: A Job That Matters

I'm beginning to think that the only way to lift this depression I'm in is to go to work doing something that matters to me. I need a job that means something. I need a reason to get up in the morning and work hard and long. What I do now pays well in everyplace but my soul. Yes, depression has many physical causes and is not necessarily triggered by any current or recent event. And yet I get energized by having something to do that matters, if not to me then at least to someone else who needs the output I'm producing.

I have a lot of communications skills, as you might imagine. Everyone who reads what I write tells me I write well. (But then the folks who tell me this know me. It's one thing to hear praise from your friends. It's another to get strangers to pay for what you write, and our world is littered with starving writers.

If I could define my ideal job, it would be one where I get up in the morning with something to write that means something to me--like the short piece on how disgusted I am that America is torturing people in its war on terror--and have people pay me for those thoughts on paper. Unfortunately, most of my thoughts are not fully developed because my time gets eaten up, and my soul gets sucked out, writing technical stuff that my employers don't seem to care about. And I know that if they need to cut costs, I'm the first cost that's cut. I'm a luxury in the information age.

I'd work for half of what I'm making now if I could sell these little essays I write. (See my work on my web site: http://trmurrell.netfirms.com/ for examples of better thought out work.) I've got a book manuscript of Memorial Day essays I'd like to get published. And I have other books I could write that would bring in some money.

I need a contact in the business who thinks my writings would sell. So I've broken down my last barrier of pride to ask here for the kind of job I want. Perhaps this is a prayer, and perhaps the Spirit will hear my prayer and grant it. Or perhaps you are a weary editor looking for a fresh take on the world from someone who isn't jaded by life and who can write clear sentences and even paragraphs.

I just want a job that means something to someone and to me. Is that too much to ask?