Meaningful Work
The alarm clock goes off. All it would take is a sleepy decision to turn over and go back to sleep. How often have we all said, “Oh, if I could only stay home from work today . . I’ve got so much to do around the house (around the yard, in the garage, in the basement, for the kids, for the grandkids). I just can’t get everything done that I need to. And it would be so nice to just sit on the porch and read a book or take a nap. I wish I could stay home today and just do what I want to do.”
Work. We might call it our profession, or career, or vocation, or, more mundanely, our job. But most of us go to work. Most of us get up four, five or six times a week, drink something with caffeine, prepare ourselves as best we can mind and body, get in our car, and go. For better or worse. For richer or poorer. In sickness and in health. We go.
And speaking of health. . . medical insurance has become one of the prime motivators for getting out of bed and going to work. Or there’s the lure of overtime and productivity pay. That extra chunk of cash that makes the difference between a Corolla or a Camry, a vacation in a tent or in a nice house on the beach.
So many reasons to get up, get out, get going, and get to work.
And when we get to work, we gripe about the people we work for, the people we work with, the environment we work in, and the time at work when we’d love to be doing almost anything else. Sometimes we even complain about the work itself.
Then something happens, any one of many things, and suddenly there’s no getting up/out/or going anywhere. The change could be retirement. It could be layoff. It could be sickness. But suddenly our entire perspective around work changes. Instead of a treadmill work becomes a privilege. Those mornings when we wanted to turn off the alarm and go back to sleep become opportunities to earn wages, interact with people, join the world.
Too often it takes the loss of work for us to experience its deep meaning and purpose in our lives.
Meaningful work . . .
is any work where we recognize the fulfillment of not only the externals of wages and benefits, but also the internals of making a contribution to our community and to others. Meaningful work isn’t defined or limited to expensive office furniture or long luncheon meetings. It isn’t limited to extensive education or a string of letters after a name. It isn’t limited to power and influence and income in the usual definitions.
Meaningful work is work that ultimately feeds us because we know that what we do and are at work is somehow making this world a better place. And every kind of job, every day of work carries this potential.
I’m remembering the fun my mother and dad had when they talked with the wait staff at their local restaurant. Those people working, almost running to get food and drink to the lunchtime crowd made a difference in the lives of my parents. Or the nice person at the quick trip/gas station who makes eye contact when telling you to have a good day. Or the nurse who chats with you when drawing blood for your lab tests. Seeing work as meaningful and an opportunity to be kind creates work as privilege rather than grind.
Recently I stopped in a discount store to pick up one item. The folks shopping in the store were from the neighborhood. Some probably hadn’t bathed in some days. One didn’t seem to be shopping nor did he seem to know exactly where he was. No one made eye contact. No one smiled. Then from the back of the store came the fellow who must have been simultaneously the night manager, shelf stocker, security guard, and checkout guy. He came up to the cash register with a big smile on his face and said in a loud voice, “Welcome to a little bit of heaven.” I imagine there was sarcasm in his comment, but the smile was kind and the words warm. Some of us smiled back.
It’s part of our human natures not to realize the value, the worth of something or someone until that person or thing is taken away. It could be that a “job” we’ve lost for any number of reasons becomes more meaningful than we could have ever imagined. Meaningful work is a great gift. Just ask those who have lost the opportunity or the ability to work.
And, yes, sometimes we have to boost the meaning along.
But meaningful work is not about slapping an alarm clock and drowning the morning in caffeine. It’s not about going to work and dreaming about that beach vacation coming up if you can just hang on for another eight months. It’s about being present to what good can happen and what kindnesses can be exchanged.
It’s about the sense of purpose, the reason to get out of bed and find meaning in a world that too often presents as basically insane. It’s using our mental and physical strengths to provide services to whoever shows up on our paths. And meaningful work is not just the service, the blood draw or the plate of warm food. It’s the intent we bring with it, the intent to be kind, to be humane, and yes, on a quiet night at the local discount store, to offer “a little bit of heaven”.
