What's work?

Dear friend,

Thank you for the invitation to work through Designing Your Life. I’m excited for the journey, and to learn some tools together that we can take with us wherever we head next. The second activity the authors demand is the authoring of what they call a WorkView – a general philosophical statement about what work means and why we engage in it.

I work primarily for three reasons: near-term satisfaction, long-term empowerment, and the ability to luxuriate however I want whenever I choose. But first, a little background…

The Story I’m Telling Myself

I believe that the most important moment in human history was the telling of the first story. Whether a story is meant to manipulate, inspire, or entertain, it seems to me to be a uniquely human thing. Work affords the opportunity to become a part of an ongoing story instead of having to invent all the exposition myself. I get to plug in and meddle, training so that I can eventually craft precisely the story I want to manifest in my own life.

Near-term Satisfaction

I want to get rough and calloused, like Cheryl Strayed’s hips in Wild, and be able to help others get rough and calloused so that they know they can go off and build what they want instead of their lives being dictated by other people and the self-centric decisions those people make.

It’s also fun to be on a problem solving team. I like the momentum of helping someone solve their problem to have them turn right around and help me solve mine. I haven’t been able to find that regularly in my life outside of a business that tells you what the goal is and how you’ll know if you reached it.

Long-term Empowerment

I want part of my story to be opening a door for someone I love that would otherwise be closed. I want to be able to open that door with hard-earned wisdom and hard-earned cash. By working with others on smaller scale projects, and for Company X trying to do Thing Y this quarter, I’m actively preparing myself to one day help Loved One A to pursue whatever goals they choose.

So far I’ve written about sweat and toil, for myself and for others. Coincidentally (or… maybe not), I’m learning that resting well is one of my biggest weaknesses.

A Cloud of Bliss

Besides near-term satisfaction and long-term empowerment, I want another part of my story to be luxuriating on a cloud of bliss– whatever that means to me at a given time. There are few things better than a refreshing rest after a job well done. I want the freedom– in time, energy, and money– to be able to buy a trip wherever I want to go. And to do fun “once-in-lifetime” things. Or to check out and play board games for days on end.

In The End

I put down Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People to pick up Designing Your Life. His second habit is to Begin With The End In Mind. He encourages the reader to envision their funeral. What would people say? People who worked, played, and engaged with the departed.

When I leave this place I want somebody to stand up and say: “This man worked really hard at the things that mattered to him. He built the life he wanted. The communities he was a part of benefitted immensely. Folks in them went on to benefit other communities. He was a doer, and those efforts live on.”

Thanks again for creating this opportunity for us to work together intentionally.

Yours,
JT