In pursuit of complicated ambitions
"The need to satisfy the soul and pay for our material existence.”
Hello there! I’m so happy you’re following along.
Lately I’ve been going through change. It’s subtle, yet powerful. It’s shifted the way I view the world, and the stories I assign to my experiences. I feel like I’m returning to my roots, to writing, reflecting, synthesizing and searching for meaning.
On this quest to find more meaning in my work, I read a book by the modern-day philosopher Alain de Botton called A Job to Love. In this part-guide, part-exploration - the author takes us on a journey of what it means to "have a job you love."
One of the most extraordinary and yet quietly routine features of our age is the assumption that we should be able to find work that we not only tolerate, or endure for the money, but profoundly appreciate, for its high degree of purpose, camaraderie and creativity.”
― The School of Life, A Job to Love
The book starts off to explore questions like; “Where does the notion that you have to have a job that both fulfills your soul’s desire and also sustains your livelihood come from?” “How does one find meaningful work?” “Do you have to search for it or create it?”
All of these are valid questions and it’s safe to assume that everyone at some point throughout the windy path of their career has pondered.
However, this complex concept of work satisfaction has made us all a little neurotic and crazy about our own relationship with our work. Can you relate?
To comfort us, the author explains that the notion of having a job you love is complex and riddled with flaws and pitfalls that no one can quite attain.
To further confuse us, human nature tends to complicate our understanding of what we consider meaningful work:
This comes from the notion that “Even when we accept that working out what to do is something we’ll need to devote much attention to over many years, we come up against a further, and much ore puzzling problem: how difficult it is to know the nature of our own minds.”
However, there are ways to makes sense of our muddled minds. To practice this “art of understanding ourselves,” we can perform an exercise in interpreting and defining our experiences.
We can ask ourselves “What is a beautiful city like” What is an ideal holiday” How does a good conversation flow?” “What makes a meaningful friendship?”
These questions might seem vague, or even daunting, but learning how to define these experiences, will flex our muscles in interpreting what makes a job fulfilling.
As the book goes on, we are spared the inevitable existential dread that come from such a lofty goal with the simple idea that: a successful career isn’t the norm, and can oftentimes come at great costs.
Nonetheless, if we do want to follow the path of meaning, we must also have the courage to become a “beginner” again. This means to train and learn new skills, to be a novice in a new field of work, to face the reality that it might take us years to master a career.
If that feels terrifying, consider this:
“Only when we are intrinsically motivated are we capable of generating the very high levels of energy and brainpower necessary to shine out amid the competition. Work turned out merely out of a duty quickly shows up as limp and lacking next to that done out of love.”
In other words, pleasure isn't the opposite of work: it's a key ingredient of successful work.
This idea that pleasure and delight should be a part of work deeply resonated with me.
Here on Bibliotherapy and Me, I want to do work that is meaningful first and foremost to me. In turn, I hope that there is something meaningful you can extract from it too.
In the end, what this book showed me is that being human comes with this struggle and need to understand ourselves. We all share these struggles, so if we voice them, write them, share them, read books about them, we can feel a little less lonely in our neurosis.
One thing is always true; we always have the option to start afresh, step out of our comfort zone, become curious and try something new.
Let’s use books to guide us and turn the page together.
See you next week!
xx Toni
PS: What does meaningful work mean to you? Is it easy or hard to define it? Have you also struggled to define what meaningful and fulfilling work means for you? Leave a comment on the post and let’s normalize the idea of meaningful work.