Andy Van Solkema

Problem-solving is individual; meaning is collective. With problems, there is suffering. Without them, there is no meaning. The self, then, is both the …

…eant to work, something that affected everyone from the highest executive to the lowest oil rigger. “Is our industrial discontent not the expression of hunger for a work life that has meaning in terms of higher and more enduring spiritual values?” he asked. “How can we preserve the wholeness of personality if we are expected to worship God on Sundays and holidays and mammon on Mondays through Fridays?” The conflict between work and life was not a simple matter of time allocation. It required preserving one’s spiritual and psychological integrity across the domains of labor and leisure, the workplace and the home. It required keeping one’s personality intact.

…t his eyes upon Standard Oil’s managers and workers, and upon the working class in general, was the spiritual impoverishment of the human psyche. “Our economy has been abundantly productive, our standard of living is at an all-time peak, and yet we are a tense, frustrated, and insecure people full of hostilities and anxieties,” he lamented in the Harvard Business Review.