Bring meaning to your everyday work!

A seer making offering to the river Ganges

It's been over five and half years since I left the corporate IT career after walking with it for about 14 years. Since then, I've been traveling around the world, alone at first and now with my wife and our 2 year old daughter. I am a certified Yoga teacher and a massage practitioner. I've been studying the yogic scriptures and world religions/philosophies to better understand the world around me. After meeting people in over 55 countries and knowing what I know now, I see my past corporate work experience from a very different perspective and with more meaning. I feel the strong need to share my thoughts on how one can see more meaning in their work by asking a few simple questions. Here is what I have to share!

First, get a bit of clarity on who YOU are!

So an important question most of us don't ask before interacting with anything or anyone in this world is, who am I? Am I the family I belong to, am I the body I carry with me all the time, am I the race or gender I associate myself with, am I the educational degrees and my professional achievements, am I the likes and dislikes that drive my emotions, am I the relationships I have/had, am I the gadgets that I wear and own, am I my interests and hobbies, am I the emotions I carry with me during all waking minutes of the day, am I the intellect/thoughts that bring reason and logic to my thoughts and actions, or am I something else? There is no right answer or one correct answer that makes sense to everyone at any given time. But it is necessary to have clarity on what you identify with at any given time. These identities determine your outlook towards what you call work and the quality of interactions you have with the world around you. So take a moment and think about this important question. Who are you and what do you identify with?

Understand the reasons WHY you chose to work.

According to Oxford dictionary, work is an "Activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result." In a much broader sense we associate work with activities that we do for earning income and/or employment. Have you ever thought of the reasons why YOU chose to work? It is a common notion in almost all cultures around the world that one has to work and earn a living. But have you independently asked that question to yourself and understand the reasons why you chose to work? Is it to pay the bills and buy food, is it to buy things that give you comfort (home, car, devices, clothes etc.,), is it to have/maintain the respect that you want from others, is it to save money for yourself or for your family's future, is it to help others because of your values and beliefs, is it to fit into the societal expectations, or is it for other reasons? As you start answering this question, you might see yourself going back to the identities that you took on (from the previous section). In most of the cases, you want to protect the identities you chose that determine who YOU are, and you use your mental and physical activities (work) to protect those identities. To give you examples, if you identify yourself as a person who is a hard worker, you choose work and activities to maintain that identity. If you identify as the person who deserves respect from others, you choose your work accordingly. If you want to maintain the identity as a person who is always busy and on the go, you choose your work accordingly. Are you seeing the relationship between your identities and the work you choose? If you see this relationship, take a moment and assume (in an imaginary world) that you no longer want to associate with those identities. Do you still want to do the same work/job?

When do you plan on moving on to doing something ELSE?

When do you plan on moving on from doing what you are working on right now to doing something else? Are you planning to work until you no longer have the job (fired or retired), do you have a fixed amount of time (months or years) after which you plan to work on something else, do you have a fixed amount of money that you want to make on this work before you change work, or do you have some other plan on your mind? Having an answer to this question will give you some clarity and put your current work in the context of your long term needs.

In summary, I believe that it is important for everyone to understand the identities they associate with, the reasons behind why they choose to work, and the lifespan of their current work. Having a clarity about these things will help you find meaning in everything you do whether you call it an activity, work, chore, or job.

If you are interested in reading our family travel blog, you can visit it here - http://livingourjoyfulness.blogspot.cm