How to Find Fulfillment at Work
Recently I met with a young man who was struggling at his job. A mutual friend recommended that I speak with him to see if I could provide any guidance. The young man told me that he dreaded getting up every morning to go to work, and that he came home every evening drained and exhausted.
“What do you think I should do?” he asked. “I want to feel better about my job, but don’t know what to do. Frankly, I’m not particularly spiritual, and am just looking for practical advice.”
This young man is not alone in his perception of his job as drudgery. Many people strive for success and admiration at work and pour energy in to the promise of their careers, but somewhere along the way find that the anticipated rewards either do not materialize, or do not provide the happiness that they had hoped for, leaving them feeling stuck, trapped, bored, frustrated, drained, duped or depressed. I know this, because at times in my career I’ve also experienced all these feelings.
Here’s what I’ve learned, and what I told the young man:
First, you need to objectively identify why you are so unhappy at your work. There can be several categorical reasons:
1. Your type of work: Perhaps you are in a field that you find inherently unsatisfying, or you feel called to a different type of career. Maybe you are a lawyer, yet yearn to be an artist; or you are an artist but are drawn to business; or you work at a large company but dream of being an entrepreneur.
2. Your work environment: Maybe you are dissatisfied with your company, and experience your boss as abusive or insensitive, or are in conflict with your co-workers, or find your corporate culture demeaning, or feel undervalued and not listened to.
3. Your personal situation: Are you unmotivated because the time demands of your job have hurt your relationships with your family, friends, and community, leaving you feeling exhausted, resentful, and unbalanced in your life?
4. Your attitude: Hovering over all these reasons is your attitude. Do you look for problems and faults, or do you see possibilities for growth? Do you view people as threats and competitors, or do you see others as fellow human beings who share the same struggles and desires as you do?
Let’s look at ways to address each of these reasons:
1. Many people I speak with tell me that their jobs are not fulfilling, but can’t identify alternatives. In those cases I recommend an exercise that you may find useful: Make three lists. On the first, write down all the things that you are naturally good at. On the second, all the things that you enjoy. And on the third, all the things that are meaningful to you. Don’t hold back or edit your responses; just write what comes to mind. Now, look for a theme that comes up in all three lists – that’s an indicator of your true purpose. An immediate answer may not appear, but you will be pointed in a direction. We are energized when we do something we enjoy, excel at, and that is meaningful.
2. If your work environment is truly toxic to your mental and physical health, you ought to consider leaving. If you decide to stay, though, and want to be satisfied at your work, you must truly commit to your job, and to the success of your peers, co-workers, and your company. Once you do this you will naturally find ways to contribute, and will suddenly discover that you are not a helpless victim, but are a crucial and valued member of an interdependent community. This is not a Pollyanna, unrealistic vision, but is exactly how successful, energetic people approach their jobs.
3. In order to feel satisfied at work it is crucial that we live balanced lives. Plan meaningful time with your family, exercise regularly, find community activities that involve you in the needs of others, and explore hobbies that allow for creative release. Most of us have much more available time than we think, but we often squander this time watching TV, or in some other activity that we think will bring relaxation, but that actually drains us even further. Finding balance is about commitment and discipline.
4. Once you implement the first three recommendations with positive intention, you will suddenly discover that your attitudes have changed. You will lighten up and have more energy. You feel more free, engaged, relaxed, optimistic, and grateful, because you will have discovered possibilities for your job and your life that had been hidden under the cover of limiting, negative attitudes.
I suspected that one or more of these reasons applied to the young man’s situation, and wished him the strength and courage to implement lasting changes that will transform how he views his job, himself, others, and the purpose for his life.
I also shared a quick thought with him about “spirituality”. We may think of spirituality as naively idealistic, or something reserved for special times and activities, but “spirituality” is, essentially, the experience of a transformative connection. In other words, we are “spiritual” when we connect deeply with ourselves, others, and the Divine, in a way that strips away our defensive fronts, revealing our true selves. We have all had these experiences - in the beauty of nature, at the birth of a child, when we commit to love, care for another, or in the moments of creative “flow” - and spiritual practices are developed to help train us to make these connections in a regular, deliberate way. In this way, the recommendations above are all spiritual practices designed to help us find more peace, purpose, and fulfillment in everything that we do.
Looking for God in All the Wrong Places
A man recently came in to my office for a job interview. As we were talking, I noticed that he was distracted by one of the framed items hanging near my desk, and so I turned to see what he was looking at.
“Is that a Rabbinic Certificate?” he asked. “Are you a Rabbi?”
“Yup, but only after hours”, I answered.
“Can I ask you a question?” he said. “I hope that you won’t be offended, but…do you actually believe in God? I mean really believe?”
Now, that’s an unexpected turn, I thought.
“Actually, yes, I do” I answered. “But we need to define what we mean by the word ‘God’, though.”
“Really?” he replied. “Well, I suppose, as a Rabbi, you have to. But frankly, for me, belief in God is irrational. I can’t believe that there is some kind of being that watches us and cares about us. It doesn’t make sense. Not in this world, the way it is, with the terrible things that happen. Besides, science has proven that most of the stories in the Bible are myths. And look at all the damage that religion has caused. Faith and reason are opposites, and I am not about to abandon my reason.”
I’ve come to learn that many people, like this man, have difficulty encountering God in a way that is consistent with the realities of their lives, the workings of their minds, and the revelations of science. Most of us have wrestled with such impediments, which can seem to be insurmountable walls, separating those who “believe” from those who question, with no apparent reconciliation possible.
Surprisingly, a story in the Bible presents impediments to understanding God, and also responds with answers that the man who came in to my office would probably find unexpected. This story is well known - even to those who have never read the Bible - through the movie visions of Cecil B. Demille and Stephen Spielberg. One day, the shepherd Moses wanders on to a mountain, where his life suddenly changes. The text tells us:
An angel of God appeared to him [Moses] in a blaze of fire from amid the bush. He saw, and behold, the bush was burning in the fire but the bush was not consumed. Moses thought, “I will turn now and look at this great sight – why will the bush not be burned?” God saw that he turned aside to see, and called out to him from amid the bush and said “Moses, Moses”, and he replied, “Here I am”.
Embedded in these four sentences, which describe Moses’ epiphany – his awakening to the Divine presence -, are several typical impediments to experiencing God, along with associated avenues for resolutions. Below, I present these impediments as first-person statements, similar to those voiced by the man who came in to my office:
Impediment 1: I see no proof of God’s existence. I’ll believe when I see an obvious demonstration
The Bible is filled with spectacular miracles, which may lead us to look for God in such spectacles. The revelation to Moses, though, comes through a little, unassuming bush that has caught fire. This little bush teaches us that God can be found when we pay attention to the everyday miracle that surround us – the things we all too routinely take for granted: a beautiful tree, the workings of our bodies, the wonder of our minds, the gift of our children, friends and our jobs, and the life force - “burning” but unconsumed - coursing through the veins of a little bush. When we consciously place our awareness on these everyday miracles, the presence of the Divine is revealed.
Impediment 2: I can’t prove God’s existence rationally, which is the only way to knowledge.
If we can’t logically prove God’s existence, then isn’t God just a wishful delusion, a manipulative construct of control-based religion, or a pre-rational fantasy? Moses, however, had a direct experience of the Divine presence, calling him to his life’s purpose. Intellect can provide a valuable categorical framework, but, as Moses discovered, God, like love, is experienced, not conceptualized.
Impediment 3: A relationship with God will make me arrogant and/or sheepish.
To some, it may seem that those who believe in God are giving up their individuality and intellect by buying in to a packaged, unquestionable, unprovable doctrine, leading to the paradoxical combination of arrogant certainty that one has exclusive ownership of Truth, along with the abdication of personal questioning. Not a very appealing picture. Moses’ response, “I am here”, though, is not a surrender of individuality, nor acceptance of a religious creed, but is a declaration of full readiness to listen, a commitment to serve, and a desire to receive guidance and wisdom. This is the true posture of a relationship with the Divine.
Impediment 4: “Spiritual experiences” are just feel-good self-indulgence.
One of the unfortunate aspects of much modern spirituality is that it can often turn toward self-involvement, based on the belief that the primary goal of such spiritual practices is to receive Divine personal reward; to be given special “powers”, to be protected by life’s suffering, and to have a level of clarity that raises one above others. Moses encounter teaches us that a deep spiritual path makes us more sensitive to the needs and feelings of others, less enthralled by the tug of our egos, and propels us to socially beneficial action. Moses is called because he needs to perform a task that will eventually lead to the transformation of the world.
I wonder if these explanations would have made any impact on the man who came in to my office. Maybe not…. God is not found in explanations. Maybe, though, these points would have given some direction to his search, or at least have helped him to see that the “battle” between faith and reason is built on a false foundation, and that there are ways of understanding God and religion that can dissolve his impediments, open him to new possibilities, enrich his life, and help him to find purpose as he searches for work in these difficult times.
The Promise of Uncertainty
There was once a philosophy professor who opened each class by reminding his students that the test of any truth is whether it is paradoxical. In other words, it must be internally self-contradictory in order to be true. This is a difficult concept to grasp, so one of his students approached a math professor and asked if he could explain this puzzling teaching. The math professor came to the next class, and as the philosophy professor was about to begin, stood and asked, “Sir, do you really believe that all truth is based on paradox?” The philosophy professor scratched his head and thoughtfully answered, “Well, yes… and no.” I’d like to offer such a paradoxical statement by the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus:
There is nothing permanent except change.
We clearly live in times of enormous change. Many of us, though, may wish that things could stay put, or return to some version we have of “better times”. We may feel a desire for solid, familiar ground, and out of a sense of uncertainly we may be feeling fearful and insecure. In this fearful state of mind, though, it is very difficult to act positively and to find wisdom, because when fear arises our self-created defenses go up, dampening our deeper knowing, and unseating our sense of confidence and connection. In this way, we may tend to reject change and its accompanying feeling of uncertainty.
But we can view uncertainty in a different way. Uncertainty can be a great gift, causing us to re-think our established, fixed way of seeing things, and opening the way for transformation - from stagnation to movement; from limitation to expansion. In this light, uncertainty is the calling card of change and growth, and is a cause for optimism, not fear. This is the essential process of evolution. Periodic - often dramatic and unpredictable - changes occur, leading to the creation of new, more advanced species that further the process of awareness and diversity. Without change there is no life, because without change there is no growth. Without change our mind, body, emotions, and spirit begin to atrophy, solidify, and decay. Charles Darwin himself noted this succinctly:
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
In order to be responsive to change, we must have the confidence to look at our situation as honestly as possible, assess where previously held beliefs and actions are keeping us from growing, and muster the strength to implement a new course of action. This requires that we become conscious of our internal mental dialogue, and challenge fear-based assumptions against reality. If different action is needed, we will then respond based on information, not reactionary fear. In essence, these external changes result in our own internal change, and are the catalysts for personal and communal growth.
We all know people (and we may be one ourselves), who faced an unexpected change that felt completely unwelcome when it occurred, but who now look back on that event as a key positive turning point in their lives. Through addressing this change, and accepting the uncertainty that followed, that person (you?) experienced growth that would not have happened otherwise. Uncertainty and change are the agents in our lives that propel us, often against our will at the moment, to growth; exposing the hidden defenses that we’ve created to protect us from revealing our insecurities. Once exposed, these defenses begin to weaken, and we allow something new and positive to enter. This is what is meant by the famous, often quoted truism:
As a door closes, a window opens.
By going through that window – though it may be a tight fit - we can discover a landscape of possibilities that we may never had known existed if the same old door that we’ve been walking through for all of our lives had not suddenly been closed. From this perspective, uncertainty and change are great gifts of grace that present great opportunities for growth.
The Talmud, the compellation of Jewish thought, in addressing one who is struggling with the difficult feelings of uncertainty and uninvited change, says,
…let him be sure that these are the chastening of love
Like a parent who, out of love, insists that her child turn off the TV (or log off of Facebook), put down the candy bar, and stop hitting his sister in order to exercise, study, get restful sleep, make peace with his sibling, and eat good food, we are often forced to change, from an Infinite Love that desperately desires our healthy development. The child may resist – and perhaps resent - these changes, unwilling to acknowledge that these are ultimately for his own good. Accepting uncertainty and change requires faith - the knowledge that we are watched, guided, and protected, and that our lives are purposeful and meaningful. Although we may not often understand why events are unfolding, faith gives us the peace to face these events with confidence.
Uncertainty is the calling card of change and growth, and is a cause for optimism, not fear. So, instead of feeling fearful, or hoping that things will somehow return to their old familiar patterns, we can embrace our current situation of uncertainty and change with great optimism, knowing that we are heading toward an individual and collective future that will be better, more prosperous, more compassionate, and more wondrous than we can yet imagine. Then, if we are willing, we can walk through a new door that opens to the untold, unimaginable potential that is our birthright as human beings.
The Beginning of EVERYTHING Part 2
This is Part 2 of a two-part exploration of EVERYTHING. Last week, I posed the question:
How is it that there is a non-physical component to our physical being that is unrestrained by the limitations of space, time, and matter; that allows us to be self-aware, and to which we can connect?
Here, then is the essential paradox that is at the foundation of all paradoxes: How can Consciousness know and be known when It is all that is, and there is no possibility for anything else, since something else would be just a subdivision, or a fractal of the whole, simply looking back at Itself? The only solution was to create something that is “other” – that is different, but accessible to the whole. Yet, how can something else possibly exist, since pure Consciousness is all there is, and anything else would contain elements that it does not possess? Where would this new element come from? The “other” can not exist outside of Consciousness since, at this point in our imagining, before the Big Bang, there is no “there”, and no “thing”.
Somehow, the infinite Desire to Become overcame this irreconcilable paradox (we’re here after all!), and Consciousness “contracted” Itself to allow for the possibility of something “other” to be born – something that It could enter in to a relationship with - and an infinitely small “point” was created to allow for the potential of space, time, and matter to appear. But since this situation is impossible (how can anything exist that is not part of, and connected to, the whole?), during an infinitely small time Consciousness flooded back in to the point, imbuing physicality with the eternal element of Consciousness, triggering the first event, the Big Bang - an ejection of endless consciousness through finite space. And that original orgasmic scream of creation still reverberates throughout the Universe. (In1964, the accidental discovery of this reverberation as cosmic radiation earned Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson Nobel Prizes)
Because physicality is animated by Consciousness, everything that exists contains the capacity to be, and the desire to grow. We have seen this process take place, as inanimate clouds of elemental gasses slowly evolved in to stars and human beings. But, how can pure Consciousness – timeless and formless – interact with physicality – limited and organic? The transient can not be mixed directly with the Eternal because the physical would then be instantly destroyed; or better expressed, instantly returned to its Source. Some system must have been created to allow for this paradox to happen in order for physicality to even be possible, because physicality without consciousness is inanimate and mute.
We can, then, imagine layers of increasing dense “filters” that slowly “dim” pure Consciousness so that the physical can partake of it and be part of it, while remaining physical. This process is like slowly diminishing the power supply from the electrical substation to your house to allow your toaster oven to operate without frying its hardware. Unlike the toaster, however, we can consciously ascend these “filters” to higher and higher realms where there is more pure Consciousness, and bring glimpses of these realms back to physicality, thereby raising the level of our existence closer to our Source, and bringing more consciousness in to the world. This is how Consciousness can know and be known by physical creatures.
The desire and purpose of creation is for physical matter to evolve in to self-awareness, and this can only happen through the choice to struggle to grow beyond the limitation of physicality. If we automatically connected to the Source of our consciousness there could be no growth and no relationship, since there would be no choice. There can be no meaningful relationship with an automaton that has no free will. There can also be no obvious system of reward and punishment. Imagine a system in which whenever someone does “wrong” they are struck by a lightening bolt, and whenever we do “good” gold coins float down from heaven? Then there would be no choice; only coercion and fear of punishment. Love has no meaning if it is not freely given. You can not love someone who you fear, and love can not develop when one panders to authority in order to receive desired rewards. We want our children, for example, to do the right thing not because they fear punishment, or hope for reward, but because they choose to do so in spite of temptations to do otherwise, and in acceptance of the consequences that may delay personal gratification. Only then are they truly adults, and only then can they enter in to healthy relationships of love.
Embedded in physicality, then, is the possibility of, and attraction to, unconsciousness – the temptation to choose to reject the inherent desire toward growth and relationship. Because pure pre-physicality Consciousness could not know of limitation and imperfection that is inherent to physicality, (matter being less than Consciousness Itself), It “assumed” that conscious physical creatures would automatically be drawn to It, since It is the very Source of existence, and the only Reality: Why, It “wondered” would anything choose stagnation and decay over growth, or hatred and death over love and life? The appeal to unconsciousness, therefore, was made very strong. Perhaps too strong… This may be the only “flaw” in the perfection of creation, requiring Consciousness to periodically intervene and provide guidance. These are moments of grace and revelation, documented by sages and mystics, and experienced by human beings since the dawn of our species.
We can now make this essential statement:
The purpose of creation is the desire of Consciousness for relationship. The only way to fill this desire is through our choice to nurture and expand our own consciousness to higher levels of awareness, thereby increasing the relationship.
The final cosmic paradox, then, is this: We are something that pure Consciousness, our Creator - what religious systems often refer to as God - is not: we are physical. And, we can actually do something that our Creator can not; we can grow and evolve by adding more awareness to the realm of physicality through our own choices. And by doing so, we literally sanctify creation, elevating our existence, and growing ever stronger and clearer in our connection to Consciousness, as we journey together toward an unimaginably glorious future when we live in undiluted awareness of our true nature and great purpose.
The Beginning of EVERYTHING
This is Part 1 of a two-part article:
Let’s journey back approximately 13.7 billion years, to the Beginning of Everything - the moment in time when time itself began:
All that is and ever will be - all space, time, and matter - is contained within an infinitely dense and infinitely hot primordial “egg”, the size of an atomic nucleus. Within .000000000001 of a second, the four forces of nature - the strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic and gravity - begin to separate as this egg expands at a speed faster than light, and within .0001 of a second the Universe is nearly a mile in width, and trillions of degrees hot. The Universe continues to expand and cool as simple elements meet to form new substances, and the pull of gravity collapses clouds of cosmic gasses in to stars, and then planets. Chemical-rich cosmic debris bombards our little Earth, fertilizing its land and air, birthing life. Simple single-celled organisms grow more complex and diverse, until suddenly self-aware beings arise who can begin to wonder why they were born, where they come from, and what they are meant to do.
This description is based on the familiar theory of the Big Bang. Just 80 years ago, however, the accepted theory was that everything that exists always existed in an unchanging and unchangeable “steady state”, and that the Universe consists solely of the Milky Way Galaxy. Then, astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that many of the glittering objects that everyone thought were nearby stars are actually incredibly distant Galaxies, and in that one moment humanity learned that the Universe is hundreds of billions of times larger than we had thought. Hubble also observed that every object in the sky is moving away from every other object. If this is so, it was postulated, all matter must have, at some distant moment in the past, emerged from the same point. Suddenly, the comprehensible, predictable notion of the Universe was shattered forever, and scientists discovered that there seems to be, in fact, a Beginning of Everything.
This Beginning, though, is stranger and more elusive than anyone could have imagined. Scientists recognize that they can not understand the precise moment of the Big Bang, because a tiny fraction of a second before this event all reason breaks down, and everything that we know about reality collapses in to incomprehensible impossibilities. Newer propositions, such as String Theory, Dark Matter and Dark Energy, and the possibility that ours is just one in an endless creation of Multiple Universes, do nothing to clarify this dilemma. It appears that there is simply a moment in time that is inaccessible to human rationality.
Does the trail end here, then, a tiny fraction of a second before the Big Bang? If so, we are left with several essential questions, such as: How can order emerge from chaos? How can something come from nothing? Why did physical creation happen at all, and How can inanimate, simple unified matter eventually become the incredible diversity of life?
In order to explore these questions, let’s journey back again, approximately 13.7 billion years, plus .000000000002 of a second or so, to bring us to a moment “before” creation. We can get a glimpse of this pre-physical existence by examining a component of our being that is not physical; that is not restrained by space, time, and matter, yet is intensely real. This component points us toward an understanding of creation that complements the Big Bang theory, yet resists the scientific method, because it is not physical in nature. It creates our very experience of life, giving us the ability to form abstract concepts, to remember, to plan, and to emotionally connect with others. This is our consciousness.
We may think that consciousness is simply the electric impulses in our brain. These impulses, however, are just the carriers of thoughts, not the thoughts themselves, and certainly not the totality of our awareness. Inexplicably, our physical body produces, or contains, non-physical awareness. Even if our entire consciousness is defined by the activities of the brain, we are still left with the basic question: What animates the brain - what is its “power source” -, where does consciousness come from, and how does it interact with us? We may phrase the question of consciousness as follows:
How is it that there is a non-physical component to our physical being that is unrestrained by the limitations of space, time, and matter; that allows us to be self-aware, and to which we can connect?
This is not a theoretical question, because there is nothing closer to us than our consciousness. It is the very core of our being, defining who we are, and is the vehicle for our lives, our growth and continued evolution. Without consciousness we are just lumps of organic matter. The exploration of consciousness, though, takes us beyond the realm of science, which utilizes measurable and repeatable observation, and in to a different way of knowing, relying on our experience and intuition - that which we immediately recognize as true, even though we haven’t processed the information rationally.
Because consciousness is non-physical, we can say that it did not necessarily originate in the primordial egg, but exists “outside” of physicality, and that it somehow came “through” the Big Bang co-mingled with physicality, bursting in to existence embedded in space, time, and matter. This is not as fanciful a leap as it may sound. After all, just as all matter that exists, and will ever exist, began in the primordial egg, any quality that we have now must have existed at the moment of creation as well, because in order for us to have it, it must have existed then, in a potential state. All our emotions, thoughts, and desires, then, were formed by the essential energies that came in to being with physicality at the beginning of time.
And, because consciousness is not dependant on physicality to exist, we can envision it as existing “before” the creation of physicality. That is, we can see Consciousness (I capitalize it to indicate the pure consciousness - eternal and unchangeable -that existed independent of a physical vessel in which to “dwell”) as the only reality before the Big Bang, existing without time and space. This Consciousness contains/contained the seeds of all the varieties of consciousness that we experience in their essence: pure Being, and pure Desire to Become. Pure Being is the eternal “now” of existence, forever re-created moment by moment, and the Desire to Become is the urge to grow toward the future, which is embedded in all life as the need for relationship - the desire to know and to be known; to love and to be loved. This is the mechanism of evolution.
Stay tuned for Part 2 next week, in which we explore the questions of suffering, and the very reason that we are here.