On The Meaning of Work — Part I
I’ve lost track of the number of jobs I’ve had over my lifetime. If I could sit down and count them all, it could easily be more than fifty — I’m not exactly sure. But, I’d wager I have had a job for each year of my life on this planet. I’ve had less recently than earlier in my life when I tended to be a bit more, shall we say, “exploratory.”
I tend to separate the working eras in my life. There were the blue collar years and, most recently, the white collar years. The blue collar years were colorful and, oh the characters I met and worked with. I was a bartender, a waiter, a limo driver and a produce packer for a grocery warehouse. I was a landscaper, a truck loader for UPS, a burger flipper on many occasions and spent a little more than six years with the United States Marine Corps (technically I am still a Marine — as they say, “once a Marine, always a Marine”). I once managed a restaurant, worked as a line cook and washed cars for a few seasons. I spent four years working in a factory — the same one my father worked the majority of his life in. Contrast all of that with my white collar years where I’ve been a journalist, a librarian, an IT specialist, an academic researcher and a designer.
I’m purposefully leaving some jobs out and have certainly slowed down as I’ve aged and advanced my career. But when I sit down and contemplate the meaning of work, there isn’t too much difference between the blue collar work and the white collar work. There are obvious physical differences along with the skills needed for each type of work. But in terms of meaning, it is still forty plus hours each week with only a change in the scenery and environment. I still often feel as though I am “punching the clock” and given that our lives often revolve around our work, this is a bit disheartening.
This is what I refer to as “Punching the Clock Syndrome” and it is pervasive across our culture. The great majority of us see our work as a necessary element to provide the basic needs we have for survival on the planet. Eighty percent of us do not even enjoy our work according to one study and another study cites only thirteen percent of us actually enjoy what we do. We show up and put our hours in, but would we do it if we had to? Are we passionate about our work? Is your job something you would do for free or in your free time? According to the studies, most of us would answer no to all of these questions.
Perhaps not every minute or second of our work will be something we love or feel passionate about. There are the mundane aspects of any sort of work. But, would you say you enjoy doing what you do to make a living for the most part — say, 70–80 percent of the time? For most of us, saying yes to this question revolves around a simple concept: Feeling as though our work makes an impact that aligns with our core values. In other words, do you feel what you do for 40+ hours per week makes a difference — a difference you value? For me, the question plaguing my heart and very existence is: What impact will my life’s work have when I am no longer here?
There are quite a few who have asked these sorts of questions prior to me. Scott Dinsmore gave a TED Talk on the subject in 2012 asking the question “What’s the work you can’t not do?” The question drives at whatever your life’s passion is. What means the most to you in life and does your work reflect that?
I am to a point in my life where I am asking these questions. And I am wondering if I have climbed a ladder leaned against the wrong wall. A lot of work I’ve done in the past I’ve viewed as a stepping stone. It was job to feed my daughter or pay the bills or get through school. The past 5–6 years has been all about getting my daughter through college. I didn’t have the luxury she has had in life. When I was 18, I wasn’t college material. I joined The Marine Corps and spent six years seeing the world, growing up and learning how to be disciplined. Looking back on it, The Marine Corps and many of the jobs that followed were stepping stones to get me through college and to a place where I am now. But now I am looking around and asking how I got here and if this is where I want to be. I don’t think I am alone nor the only forty something guy to ask these questions.
There is another way of looking at all of this though. Up until the past few years, my life and career was a constant struggle to survive or get to the next rung on the ladder. I was constantly pushing for something “more.” The “more” I was pushing for in the past, was a better place in life with a stable career. Back then, it was okay to work 16 hours on an assembly line because I knew it would lead to a better road. It was okay to freelance in journalism because I knew it would pay some bills, which would allow me to finish school and do something better eventually. Back then, I didn’t really find myself with too many choices. It was either go to work or not be able to do something else like keep the house or pay for classes or, sometimes, eat.
Now, I find I have choices. Perhaps this is the first time I have really had the luxury of thinking about my life or career. My daughter will finish college this year, I have a stable and well-paying job and I have the education to do almost anything I would want to do. This has led to two problems — Hick’s Law and this stranger I am confronted with in myself.
Hick’s Law relates to how long it takes to make a decision based on the number of options present. It may well be that I have entirely too many options. I am not the struggling single dad any longer. My horizons have broadened in life and I now have room to breathe, sit back and consider what direction to pursue. The second, compounding, factor is in self-discovery. Who am I, what do I value and what do I want to do with the rest of my life? What exactly is it I am passionate about? These are difficult questions for most people to answer and entire books have been written on this topic alone. But in order to determine what direction you wish to take in life, you have to ask and answer them requiring something of a journey through the “self” and understanding who you are.
Addressing these issues and answering these questions is one of my key journeys this year. I’ve started with several sources — the first of which is Ken Robinson’s book, Finding Your Element. I am attempting to discover exactly what I am good at, passionate about and how I can pursue it. Live Your Legend is a good source for this as well and they give you many free resources to help you answer these questions.
If so much of our lives is spent in a cube or on an assembly line or even flipping burgers in the back of a restaurant, shouldn’t we find some fulfillment in that? Shouldn’t we feel as though what we spend so much time doing has an impact — an impact we find meaningful to our existence? I think it is quite possible for people to find meaning in any sort of work from fast-food to crunching numbers for an accounting firm. People are different and have different passions as well as different ways of measuring our impact in and on life. But those of of us who find meaning (or even, simply, enjoyment) in our work are few. The other eighty percent of us continue plodding forth each day, punching the clock and living in quiet desperation.
In Part 2 of this article, I’ll explore how people can and do find meaning in their work as well as the elements that make our jobs and work enjoyable.
