Thanks (again!) to Curt Rosengren for pointing to the Zen Entrepreneur.
…Most Americans are caught in jobs that they do not like and would rather not be doing. We see our work as a necessary evil so that we can earn money to do the things we really enjoy. Each Friday millions of us chant the mantra of the twentieth century: TGIF! Each morning, we pump ourselves full of coffee and sugar to help us get through to lunch. We use lunch as a catapult to get us through to 3 pm. Then we hit the caffeine and sugar again to get us through until the “end” of the workday. And some of us routinely work until well into the night!
It’s no wonder that we arrive at home too tired to do or accomplish much else in life. We don’t like our work, or would generally prefer to not be working if it could be avoided (and we could afford it!), using weekends to recuperate from the week; and we take 2 weeks vacation once a year to recuperate from the other 50 weeks. Life becomes an anti-climactic dance of struggle followed by recovery!
Most people spend their entire working lives with a strange notion that there must be something more to life than what they experience each day, but unsure how to go about finding it. For some, this strange notion develops into a strong yearning for meaning and purpose in life. For the few who start to search in earnest, the last place they expect to look for answers is at work!
The author poses the question: what if we saw our work as a place for our spiritual practice, instead of thinking we have go away from work for enlightenment? He says
I’ve come to an unexpected result: I am most effective in my career and my personal life when my spiritual seeking leads not away from, but rather toward my daily life.
I liked this site and I think it contains some well expressed wisdom – much needed in a world where employee disengagement appears to be the norm (see my past entryuninspired, disenaged).
