H O W M U C H. . .

Seriously,
How much
would it take for you to quit your job and actually do what you
all-your-life-you-know-it’ll-be-better-than-happily-ever-after-job. . . ?

Would it take the Ultimate AMAZON OFFER?

A couple of years ago, Jeff Besos, the CEO of Amazon put out a decree:
$5000.00 to anyone who wanted to walk away from their Amazon job to go follow their bliss with a nice little severance jump-start. . .

AND NOW:

Amazon Offers to Pay Employees $10,000 to Quit Their Jobs and Deliver Packages Instead

I T’ S T R U E. . .
A couple of days ago the ASSOCIATED PRESS reported:

NEW YORK — Amazon, which is racing to deliver packages faster, is turning to its employees with a proposition: Quit your job and we’ll help you start a business delivering Amazon packages.

The offer, announced Monday, comes as Amazon seeks to speed up its shipping time from two days to one for its Prime members. The company sees the new incentive as a way to get more packages delivered to shoppers’ doorsteps faster.

Amazon says it will cover up to $10,000 in startup costs for employees who are accepted into the program and leave their jobs. The company says it will also pay them three months’ worth of their salary. The offer is open to most part-time and full-time Amazon employees, including warehouse workers who pack and ship orders. Whole Foods employees are not eligible to receive the new incentives.

Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc. declined to say how many employees it expects to take them up on the offer.

The new employee incentive is part of a program Amazon started a year ago that lets anyone apply to launch an independent Amazon delivery business. It is part of the company’s plan to control more of its deliveries on its own, rather than rely on UPS, the post office and other carriers. Startup costs start at $10,000 and contractors that participate are able to lease blue vans with the Amazon smile logo stamped on the side.

Overall, more than 200 Amazon delivery businesses have been created since it launched the program last June, said John Felton, Amazon’s vice president of global delivery services.

One of them is run Milton Collier, a freight broker who started his business in Atlanta about eight months ago. Since then, it has grown to 120 employees with a fleet of 50 vans that can handle up to 200 delivery stops in a day. It has already been preparing for the one-day shipping switch by hiring more people.

“We’re ready,” says Collier.

So. . .

How much would it take for you to take
THAT WALK

$10,000.00
$10,000,000,..
$100,000,000.00
any amount of money? ? ?

I use to ask couples before they got married:
“WHAT’S THE ONE THING THAT WOULD BE THE DEAL BREAKER, THATt WOULD FOREVER END YOUR MARRIAGE?”

Most couples would answer:
“IF YOU CHEATED ON ME !“

I would always shock them and say:
“WRONG ANSWER!”

They would be shocked and almost unanimously ask:
“WELL WHAT IS IT? WHAT’S THE ONE THING THAT WOULD BE THE DEAL BREAKER?”

I would give them a one-worded answer:
N O T H I N G !

THE ANSWER IS NOTHING
and I’m not so sure the answer is the same to the question of
HOW MUCH MONEY WOULD IT TAKE FOR YOU TO WALK AWAY FROM YOUR JOB. . .

Listen, I get it, the grass on the on the job farm always looks greener in another pasture,
with or without some smelling cow dung to help along with just the right green hue. . .

In fact, if I could write in down on the yellow legal pad and make it
COME TRUE
I’d hands down be a full-time professional speaker and a severely prolific self-published author (I have to many control issues to become a traditionally published author)
but I learned a long time ago in a college creative writing class that
JUST THE MERE ACT OF WRITING FOR IT’S JOY IS BETTER THAN ANY HUGE ADVANCE FOR ANY ACCEPTED PUBLISHED WORK
and though it’s taken me nearly 40 years to come to believe THAT
I DO BELIEVE THAT. . .
I LIVE THAT
as I write this blog three days a week
as I write my poems
as I write my short stories
as I write my novels
as I write my several books of non-fiction. . .

What about you?

What would it take for you to leave it all for the
UNKNOWN?

I’m living an enchanted life. . .

I work with the dying who teach me moment by moment
HOW TO LIVE

I write every day
and sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t wait for the first of hint of morning light to put it down on paper or at least in a voice message to myself (which is much easier to decipher)
I speak to a small group of folks every Sunday who have allowed me to come back each week for over 24 years; I’ve been invited to speak to nurses, social workers, administrators, nursing homes, hospitals/hospices who like not so much what I say but how I make them EXPERIENCE IT when I say it; and I conduct well over 25 memorial/celebrations of life services that make my heart beat differently than at any other time. . .

What would it take. . .

One word:

N O T H I N G

Y o u ?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm of the Day :

Maybe the real question isn’t
HOW MUCH. . .
but
HOW LITTLE

Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:

It’s not a question you answer with your lips
(only your living)