Anytime I talk about “work” (work being defined as a series of assigned tasks for which you are regularly paid), I’m always met with misunderstanding. Work, clearly, is one of those deep and layered topics that convey class and privilege. I know that.
I know that the things I am about to write clash in a country beset with a recession, with terrible stories of loss and hardship.
That’s not the context of work I am talking about today. I’m not talking about work as a means of survival, a means of providing life and nutrition and basic needs. I’m talking about work as an avenue of creative force; a garden of possibility to grow and till our ideas and tender seeds of maybe.
Work, the way the US has exposed it to me, sucks.
That’s all. That’s pretty much my point.
Across sectors – academic, corporate, private, public, government – and across disciplines – mental health, social justice, physical therapy, spiritual and religious, legal, blue collar and white collar…
Work tends to suck all the energy and creative forces from me. The paid, 40-hr work week frankly depresses any bank of creativity I had. Even jobs that boast the ability to be creative don’t really want new ideas, they want new ways of being successful, but not necessarily new or philosophies.
By no means a research study, but I often ask my friends and acquaintences how they feel about their life in terms of their job. A lot of them say, “it’s ok,” and divide what they do professionally with their personal life. That’s understandable. Not everyone has the privilege of fusing the two in a pleasing relationship.
So, what’s wrong with me? Is anyone else out there that feels like an office is an eerily similar shape and size to a cell?
Or when you look at children, your joy fades when you envision them growing up to sit in front of a computer screen?
As I continue on an aggressive path of carving out a career, I am consistently coming back to these questions of division. Why do I have to do this? Why have I not yet learned to just suck it up when everyone else has?
In the pit of my stomach, I feel a pretense when I say what I do for a living. An ideal life to me is brimming with work that brings me joy…a life where I met with challenges and daunting prospects that bring me closer to community, the world, and myself.
“That’s what everyone wants,” is what I’m told.
Than what do we need to do to make that happen?
Forget funding the revolution, how about funding our own existence, starting with being happy with our jobs, our lives!
Are you happy in your work? Do you separate work and Work?
Since I can’t ask when, I’ll ask this: HOW do you find what you love to do?