#124 How can you make work, work for you?

Although movies, books and novels wax eloquent about love, strangely not enough people speak about the joy and wisdom that underlies the work we do.

Central to most of our lives is the work we do.

Central to how we spend most of our day is work.

The kind of paid or unpaid work that we choose to do are numerous – you may be a teacher, a  lawyer, a project manager, an HR consultant, a leadership coach, a software developer, a yoga teacher, an accountant, a home maker, a social worker, a psychologist, a professional. 

Our work is a reflection of our attitudes to results, our attitudes to money, our attitudes to the time available to us, our attitudes to the change we wish to make in the world. It is like picking up a noodle off your plate. Many other noodles come along.  

Our work is a manifestation of the values that live in the deepest parts of our hearts, the values of Dharma that delight us, make our eyes smile and put a bounce in our steps.  

Our work shapes our identities more than we are willing to admit.   

While people do plan their professional work and careers, it rarely shapes out the way that they had envisioned. And while we are bumbling along trying to make the most of opportunities our work can pave the way for self growth and mastery i.e. adhikaritvam, meaning qualification for Vedanta.

The truth is that most of our work does NOT involve physical labour. But our work involves a lot of effort, an emotional labour of sorts, a grappling with our emotions as we get things done..

You want to sleep for longer in bed. But your early morning meeting with overseas client beckons. An opportunity for discipline.

You want to yell at the team member for delaying work. But the team member does deserve a benefit of the doubt. An opportunity for understanding.

You want the work to get done faster. But the newbie requires time to pick up skills. An opportunity for patience.

You want your work to scale up. But you need to learn digital skills. An opportunity to deal with the discomfort of learning.

You want to avoid confronting your team member for poor performance. But if you don’t then it creates a bad precedent for the rest of the team. An opportunity for upholding the value of productivity.

You have back to back meetings and are tired. But you owe it to the rest of the team to be prepared somewhat for the meeting. An opportunity to persist.  

You see your work as having overwhelming significance. Your partner and children feel that work always wins over family. An opportunity for balance.

You don’t feel like working anymore and dream constantly of retiring. But you look at the financial commitments on your plate. An opportunity to renew your commitment.

You and the team have worked very hard on the project. But your company did not get the deal. An opportunity to review what happened and try again for another deal.

You don’t like your job and are doing it only for the money. So you keep escaping every two hours into the world of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. An opportunity for focus and the courage to find something that you like and can also pay you money.

Your company wastes a lot of time on meetings where everyone looks bored. You pick up the strength and suggest that some ideas be shared through emails to later be discussed. An opportunity for creative problem solving and efficiency.

You are laid off or are forced to take a salary cut. You rave and rant and eventually focus on how you can cut down expenses. An opportunity for financial prudence. 

You are fed up of the demanding nature of your clients. But as a freelancer, at the risk of losing assignments you assert what you can and cannot do. An opportunity for assertion of your work contribution. 

You get an okay salary and want to provide the best to your family. But there never seems to be enough for savings. An opportunity for creative problem solving and creating a second source of income. 

You took a break from professional work to have kids. But the urge to have an avenue for producing results and to contribute to family income persist. An opportunity to take a risk and embrace the discomfort of doing your CV, upgrading your skills etc

Your career is 15 years strong. Yet you feel that something is missing. You go back to the drawing board of your life and check to see if your work ticks some of the boxes. 

Does it give you a benchmarked salary?

Is your boss or set of team members more or less qualified and skilled?

Is there clarity on where the company is going?

Are there opportunities for learning and growth?

If the answer to most of these questions is a yes, then you have a great job.

A perfect job does not exist. This is the beginning of Viveka.

Some more questions –

Will the work give me lasting fulfillment?

Will I regret that I spent less time at work?

Will the work give me moksha?

Does my work define me?

It might be difficult for us to answer No to these questions.

If we think that our work defines us or our work will keep me happy at all times in all places then we need to think again. Without us being aware of it, the tentacles of work identities creep into our  self worth.

When I went to the gurukulam to do the 3 year course in my 30s I struggled for the first month. Before the gurukulam I headed an organisation and we made decisions that impacted the lives of street children in India – recruiting and leading a team, strategic partner selection, organizational development,  capacity building, advocacy with stakeholders etc. Additionally as one of the judges on the juvenile justice board in Mumbai we made decisions about the rehabilitation of child offenders. Besides that teaching the Masters students of Psychology the paper on Counselling and Therapy as visiting faculty was an important contribution I made to academia.  As you can well imagine I had my hands full besides attending Vedanta classes thrice a week. Every day unfolded with performing one’s actions and relating to the results.

Every day one’s competence in actions and acceptance of results were tested. 

I had defined my mission as contributing to positive sustainable change in the lives of certain groups and my actions clearly reflected that. It was a fulfilling life relatively speaking. And yet when I went to the gurukulam for the first month I experienced an uneasy silence. Uneasy because it was not other focused, no important decisions had to be taken, no great contribution to be made. I was there for myself and myself alone. This was at odds with how I was used to spending my day. It was time to really examine how work had enriched me, the sense of achievement and completion that I felt, the money that had been earned, the skills that had been learnt, the relationships that had been built, the journey that had been completed.

A lot of us cannot imagine not working, not producing results, not earning, not enjoying the status and power that comes from our work. And yet work by itself is inert.

Really speaking work does NOT add meaning to our lives.

We add meaning to work when we do what we can to contribute.  

We improve the quality of our lives paving the way for us to see the reality that underlies our lives.

We engage in the emotional labour that we must engage in such that we can outgrow our work. We can allow our work to run its full course such that in the world of the limited we have done our best.

We can create a grand symphony when these three are all in harmony – what needs to be done,  what we want to do and what we want to avoid.

The duck appears calm on the surface but below the waters there is some feverish paddling.

To effortlessly glide in the waters of our lives much effort is required and the effort is our emotional labour, the work we need to do, to do the actual work.

The world needs you, your talents and skills and your work. It also needs the emotional labour that you put in day after day, week after week, month after month, such that you discover your freedom.

A freedom from worry and anxiety related to finances

A freedom from your ragas and dveshas.

A freedom from the need to control every outcome

A freedom that comes from a surrender to the moment

The joy and freedom of having a will that is ready to surrender itself at the altar of reality.

That will which was trained in the work of emotional labour can surrender itself to the words of Vedanta and drop the identity of being a doer and an experiencer.

You can now enjoy the freedom which helps you see that you had defined yourself narrowly as a mere karta and a bhogta, a doer and an experience.

Then the work of your life, whatever it be, has fulfilled itself and served you well.

The question is can you allow your work to work for you ?