Category Archives: Work

“There can be no joy in living without joy in work.”

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“There can be no joy in living without joy in work.”

– St. Thomas Aquinas, priest, philosopher and theologian

My brother Neal is an outstanding child psychiatrist who lives on the East Coast. The last couple of years have been quite difficult for him due to his lack of enjoyment in his work, caused by a dramatic change in his organization’s management.

His level of responsibility is high, and he is compensated quite well, but this level of reward makes virtually no difference to his level of satisfaction.
I’m proud to say that he just accepted a new (and likely more satisfying) job with a bit less pay to once again hopefully find joy in this very important part of life.

Exercise:

How can you contribute to and expand your satisfaction and enjoyment at work?

If that’s improbable or impossible, how can you make the courageous change required in order to find joy in your working life?

“Our job is the excuse through which we get to love people.”

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“Our job is the excuse through which we get to love people.”

– Panache Desai, author of You are Enough

What percent of your life do you spend engaged in work? For the sake of today’s quote, I’m going to define work as our vocation, or the way we earn a living.

For the person working Monday through Friday, a minimum of 8 hours a day (who does that these days?) work represents approximately one fourth of our life. If the song lyrics from the Beatles tune are true, and all you need is love, or the old song love makes the world go round, then perhaps Desai is really on to something.

Exercise:

How can you view your daily work efforts as an act of love, contribution and generosity, instead of something to get through on the way to your weekend?

“The highest reward for a person’s toil… “

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“The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.”

– John Ruskin, 19th century English artist and philanthropist

PROGRESS 1
I am a work in progress. How about you? With the wide variety of daily experiences we all have, I believe that we are constantly evolving and becoming a fuller expression of ourselves.

We all work each day to earn the compensation that allows us to care for ourselves and others. Ruskin’s quote, however, points to the less recognized and often subtle developments that accompany such experiences.

Exercise:

Explore how your daily efforts further your journey toward more fulfilling relationships, enhance creativity, expand greater self-esteem, support vibrant health, and extend your pursuit of wisdom.

How are you going beyond your basic psychological and physiological needs to pursue your own self-actualization? Consider Googling Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to explore this concept in more depth.