DON'T BE A ROBOT

By Ashley Smith: Every Sunday evening close to the same time each week, I feel a knot begin in my chest. Monday is coming. Back to the grind, the office the 3 by 3 foot cubicle, back to the automated work week many of us participate in.

It’s been too easy for me to try to fit into that “factory- mentality” be a cog in someone else’s machine, I feel the humanity drain out of me… and my worth is based again at the bottom line on a spread-sheet in some office in accounting.

Many times quitting seems like it’s the only way out. Because in the end, my worth is trivial, after all I am just a worn out cog that needs to be replaced.

Following that (lack of) logic, it’s effortless to lose touch with myself, burn-out, reboot and go into shut down mode. Its easier to neglect my need for hope, and escape my emotions rather than confront my humanity that's being twisted into a cog.

So I give up on myself and put work first, quit living second chances and beat myself up for not being perfect… and ultimately lose touch with what it means to be FULLY ALIVE.

I start to plug in and ignore my heart, dreams, passion… and what makes me, me…

That was up until now… up until I decided to take a stand for honesty and self awareness and TRULY BREATHE the life back into my lungs.

So today, I’m going to be exactly who I need to be, a living human-being.

I am going to take this NO QUIT Monday as an opportunity to recognize the shadow and the light… the flaws and the strengths… and put my efforts in generously giving grace to those I work with.

In the end I have been given a beautiful opportunity - to turn that 3 by 3 foot cubicle inside the factory into a second chance lifeline that invests in grace and gives hope the bottom line. Join me?