Your Work is a Gift — Open it

Before the world changed (for Californians, March, 2020), I was smack in the middle of an internal battle like no other—I love my job (well…parts of it), but I am so over work!

I’ll never forget the day that triggered it: I was standing naked in my bedroom, hovered over my phone, going back and forth between emails for my side business, texts to co-workers I was soon to see, and a Pinterest scroll for "what to wear with brown slacks.”

And then, into my email inbox it came: “Welcome to the New Normal — Escaping the 9-to-5 for Good”.

(Again, pre-pandemic speak, where “New Normal” didn’t carry the weight it does does today.)

The algorithms were working, so I took the click-bait.

A young woman travels the world adventuring and writing, this time composing from a coffee shop in Amsterdam. She talks about her time living in Costa Rica, how she said farewell to her family and friend's expectations for her, and how she loves to work when and where she pleases. At first it seemed like fake news, but as she outlined how she did it, I was persuaded it’s possible to live this dream.

I'm actually finding it hard to put on my underwear, as my entire body is frozen in feelings ranging from elation to envy.

I have been a part of the workforce since I was 10 years old. I started filing and cleaning offices for my Dad’s business, and haven’t stopped working since. I felt desperate for a break.

Suddenly, my good friend texts me: I did it, I just quit my job! (No joke, this literally happened in the same 10 minute period).

And now I'm going to be late for work, a place I have driven to for more than 15 years, over 3,000 times, because I have to have a proper meltdown before I can go. And I still don’t know what to wear with my brown slacks.

As I drive, I realize that it's time for me to confront some serious issues with my job and work in general. All of this I know is spurred by approaching 40 at the dawn of a decade, reaching my 15 year anniversary at my job (20 in the field), my age-gap husband retiring, and a sudden increase in friends, sisters, and acquaintances taking bold steps to change careers or make dramatic changes in their professional lives. Something new was brewing inside of me.

I reflected: my baseline thinking about work is service minded — the Dali Lama's, "our work is for others," my guiding mantra. By seeing my work as something that is for someone else, or a greater good for society, has helped me navigate the workplace. By striving to remove any ego and attachment to outcomes, titles, or goals, has allowed me to complete undesirable tasks differently, and stay fulfilled on the days when it didn't come easy.

However, for the first time, I wondered if this I-am-just-a-tool Puritan approach to work was healthy? It suddenly seemed limiting and unsustainable. It didn't seem to honor personal growth, the fact that everything changes, or that optimal space between risk and reward. It seemed too passive.

In times of questioning, I seek wise people, and this time it was a combination of Brene Brown, Tim Ferris, Ryan Holiday, Malcom Gladwell, and Paulo Coelho— as my friend Lisa says, “the full court press”.

I read. I listened. I journaled. I wrote. I made a vision board. I wanted an answer!

Brene Brown, know for her research on fear, vulnerability, and shame, uses her decades of data to formulate conclusions about matters of the heart, spirituality, and many other intangibles. In Gifts of Imperfection, she introduces her work by talking about her Spiritual (Breakdown) Awakening. She recalls: People may call what happens at midlife “a crisis”, but it’s not. It’s an unraveling — a time when you feel a desperate pull to live the life you want to live, not the one you’re “supposed” to live. The unraveling is a time when you are challenged by the universe to let go of who you think you are supposed to be and to embrace who you are.

She then goes on to link an individual's unique gifts to their spirituality, and then to their weaknesses, and then to their ability to create meaningful work. Brown states that by overcoming self doubt, we can forget what we are "supposed to be" and do what we love. She quotes theologian Howard Thurman: “Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

This flipped the servant approach to work for me. And while my work is for others, and I am here to serve, I also want to give that thing that is unique to me. Giving and serving are different. I began to ask myself, what makes me feel alive? What does “alive” even feel like? And what unique gift am I giving the world?

Tim Ferris, author, podcaster, tech investor, and life experimenter, got through to me in his work, Tools of Titans. Interviews from giants in their fields (he sections the almost 700-paged text into Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise). Lazy: A Manifesto, by essayist and cartoonist, Tim Krieder, rose to the top as he explained modern-day, “self-congratulated busyness”. Yes, he states, I know we are all very busy, but what exactly are we getting done?

Gladwell’s there-is-always-more-to-the-story style kept me engaged and hopeful as I read. I found his section on work in, Outliers: The Story of Success, to be the most balanced, listing three things that must come together for someone to be fulfilled—complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between reward and effort. Also, watching what our parents did and how they did it matters, and influences our career decisions, for better or for worse. Something further to consider.

Paulo Coelho’s classic, The Alchemist, reminded me that the world is magical, and full of omens, we just have to see them and listen to them. I started to breathe more, write down my dreams (magnesium helps me remember them), and asked myself if the bird chirping outside was maybe trying to tell me something…

And as I mulled on all of their advice and stories and questions sparked by their work, the world halted once again when George Floyd was brutally murdered by the Minneapolis police. The raw outrage, the injustice of it bringing up all of the world’s injustices, the wake up call for white America to get off of their butts, the feeling of needing and wanting to do something—that was what “alive” felt like. This sharply pointed, non-hesitant, spitting, crying, can’t stay in my skin, pissed off, screaming mad feeling, suddenly gave me the answer I needed when it came to work.

Thank God I have a job.

Thank God I have a place where I can do some real work. I have a place, day after day, where I can advocate for others, speak truth to power, and chip away at making the world not like the one I just saw on video. And this isn’t just unique to those who work with vulnerable populations or in leadership positions—anyone can take their fire into their places of work.

Maybe your workplace is the living room as a parent. Maybe it is an office where you coordinate. Maybe you are boots on the ground or in charge of an entire organization. I’m convinced it doesn’t matter. Our work is where we interact with people we normally would not, and do things we normally would not always choose to do. So while we are there, how are we going to do them? How are we going to treat others? How are we going to keep our biases in check? How are we going to help pick up the pieces of the disasters and tragedies of humanity as we promise not to repeat them?

The world needs us to contemplate these questions. The world needs us to act…to get in our cars, to turn on our computers, to get off of social media, to make that coffee. And while we work, to remember, that it is a gift, a privilege to be able to develop and showcase a portion of ourselves that is alive, and it may be through that very task that opens up the space for us to shine and share it.