Celebrating Your Work in Life!
07_15_2018
Celebrating Your Work in Life
I recently finished reading this wonderful book by Thomas Moore. The title of the book is A Life at Work: The Joy of Discovering What You Were Born To Do published in 2008. I encourage you to keep reading even though you may at first glance at the title and prematurely decide that the use of the term “Work” doesn’t apply to you as you may have retired or never worked in a paying job.
Moore’s definition of the term “Work” is very, very broad. I think the following quote illustrates how Moore sees all of the ways in which we dedicate our energy, commitments, and insights to what we deem important as constituting our life’s work. Here’s his description which can be found on pages 103-104 of his book:
A soulful life is one of thoughtfulness, care, and engagement you are present in everything you do, not just going through the motions. You give attention to the things that matter most. You take care of your body and your health. You make your home a place of comfort, welcome, and beauty. You educate yourself throughout your life in values and solid ideas. Your leisure time relaxes you, gives you a rich social life, and provides fun and play. Your spirituality is deep as well as visionary, and you incorporate contemplation, discussion, ritual, and prayer into everyday life, and you do all of this in a style that suits you as an individual.
From the matrix of a rich and thoughtful life, your life work emerges over time and you find ways to make it practical and workable. If you have a soulful life and home, you probably will not enjoy or tolerate a soulless workplace. You will want your career to match your sense of self…your values, your hopes, your style, and your deep needs. By ‘style’ I mean the manner in which you do things, your own way of seeing things, getting things done, and designing your life. (pp.103-104)
So stay with me and I’ll share why I love Moore’ perspective on our life’s work so much. First, I like that is multi-dimensional; it’s not limited to what you do to earn money. If anything, he hardly makes reference to time spent in a workplace other than to say you may find that you do not enjoy or find it tolerable to be in a soulless workplace. I’ve spent time in a soulless workplace and I found it very challenging and will share some of my strategies for survival throughout the next series of blogs that follow this one. I like that he begins with taking care of your body and your health. Think about it: activities aligned with these initiatives take time, often money, and a commitment of time and thoughtfulness that qualify these activities as work. So if you devote time to exercising – walking, working out at the gym, bike riding, etc. – these are a form of work. One of the ways in which we can pay attention to our health is by what we choose to eat. For many years I have found cooking to be a very creative outlet for me, but before I read Moore’s book, I never thought of cooking as part of my life’s work.
But now that I think more about why I cook, I can see how it is part of my life’s work. My next blog will be devoted to cooking, and I may share one of the new recipes I tried recently. Moore’s book has given me a whole new way of thinking about how I approach and enjoy the work of cooking.
I found his strong reference to making your home a place of comfort, welcome, and beauty a delightful, unexpected surprise! (I hope this doesn’t come across as sexist, but I’m struck by the male perspective recognizing and acknowledging the strong emotional components associated with home.) My home is one of my strongest anchors; ever since I had my first apartment after completing my undergraduate degree, I’ve been very aware of a strong inner need to create a home that matches with qualities noted by Moore. Think for a moment what it takes to create a home with these qualities. First, I think that the creative intentions come from a warm heart and a heart that makes room to pursue, acknowledge, and celebrate joy in life. I would be quite happy if the only thing people agreed on at my memorial service is that they all recognized my commitment to be aware of and celebrate the joy of being alive!
So think about why you put the work and care into the home you’ve created and are continuing to create as you are vacuuming, cleaning the bathrooms, polishing the kitchen floor, cleaning out closets, putting fresh cut flowers in a vase on your kitchen counter, etc. Again, as I engage in this work on a daily and weekly basis, I didn’t really think about it as my Life’s work until I read Moore’s book. So by reframing my thoughts to be more in touch with why I engage in this work, it has elevated my appreciation and awareness that creating a welcoming, peaceful, enjoyable home has been and will continue to be a major part of my life’s work.
I wish my maternal grandmother was still alive. I enjoyed her company when she was around, and I definitely inherited some of her spirit and values. She left school after 8th grade as that was viewed as sufficient education for women in those times…my grandmother was born in 1890 which always amazed me as a child when I thought about her date of birth as occurring in the previous century. (My, how I think about this phenomenon differently now!) Her family immigrated to this country from Ireland, and she married young and raised four children. She was divorced by the time I got to know her and as such things weren’t discussed in my family, I don’t have a lot of knowledge of what she went through in her married life. She did often share how much fun she had with her friends growing up, and she and her close friends were known as the “Naughty Seven.” I definitely am related to this woman.
Here’s how she fits into my thoughts on creating a home. After her kids were grown, she moved to Chicago on her own and worked in the Avon factory. I had the pleasure of taking the train to visit her on occasion and I remember how I would come home loaded with samples of Avon products. When she retired and move back to the town my family grew up in, she qualified as a senior to live in subsidized housing, so I’m assuming she didn’t have a lot of money. I used to walk to where she lived on the weekends to visit with her, and one of our weekly excursions was to visit the Salvation Army store. There we would hunt for knickknacks and pretty items that she could afford to help create her apartment and make it a home. So I’m pretty sure at such an early age, she imprinted her outlook and priorities onto me. The point here is that it doesn’t necessarily take a lot of money to make a house into a home. Quite the opposite…I think it takes heart and caring more than money. I’ve been in homes of people who have a lot of money and I can say that for the most part I did NOT find most of those homes welcoming or pleasant spaces to spend time in.
Spending time educating yourself as well as becoming more self-aware are definitely both forms of very valuable work. Think about the work associated with one’s later stages in life from Erik Erikson’s research. Our later stages of life provide us with time to reflect on our lives and view our lives from an integrated narrative that allows us to gain insight and wisdom into how we’ve grown and matured to our current self. This time allows us to live with more compassion and to serve as role models in our interactions with others. One of the things that annoyed me in my earlier years is the practice that has become so acceptable in this country of associating who people are with “what they do for a living.” I’ve always hated the inevitable question at social gathering where people who don’t know each other try to make conversation. One of the most popular starters is the question “What do you do?” I was always tempted to respond with a flip answer but I never did. Now I make an effort to answer that question differently; instead of leading with a description of my engagement with my consulting work, I share what other types of work that I do that I find important in my life, AND, I label all of these dimensions of my life as My Work!
The time we spend in leisure activities, social engagements, and in our spiritual practices are all equally valuable parts of our life’s work. Stay tuned as I plan to address all of these aspects of our work in the next series of Blogs.
To summarize, here is the value of thinking about our life’s work in broader terms than what we do or did to earn a living. First, these other parts of our lives constitute equally important aspects of our life’s work. Secondly, as we take the time to acknowledge these other rich dimensions to our lives, I believe these reflections will energize us as we mentally and emotionally elevate the importance of this work in our lives. Finally, as we are more in touch with the reality that “we are still in fact working,” we’ll retain a deeper sense of the value of our work which in and of itself inspires passion and purpose to our lives!
explore, create, inspire – motivational words handwritten on a napkin with a cup of espresso coffee
