The Prophet's wisdom rests on my shelf, ready to speak whenever I'm open to listening.

Often I'm too busy working - listening to others to hear some deeper voice speak into my life. Plus, sage life advice can be like a green bean casserole, it's nice in the fall and best on holidays, but it's not something you have with your daily morning coffee. I write this while drinking my daily coffee, thinking my daily deep thoughts, and hoping for daily improvement.  

Having pulled Kahlil Gibran's book The Prophet from the ledge, I find one of two United Airlines napkins that mark essential parts of his masterpiece. The first napkin keeps page 28.

"Work is love made visible," Gibran says. He continues by saying that if you don't love what you do, go beg for alms from those who work with joy: a calling and a callout.  

Like all a good prophet, he asks us to do what we think is impossible - yet if we follow his instruction - we find what we ask for - joy, love, and the kind of work we hope to spend our life's time on. The teaching is not to beg but to do work with love.

There are layers in Gibran's words, "alms" doesn't per se mean money, "work" doesn't mean a job.

If you are lucky, demanding, or creative, you may be able to do your life's work and get paid for it. But many of us have to carve out time or infuse our life work into our job work.

The other napkin marks the spot with the words:" love has no other desire but to fulfill itself."
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Questions then:

• In our age of digital everything, what kind of loving self fulfill work are you leaning into?  

• And does the tone of this question seem so counter to the paid work you often do?