A famous story relates the following encounter:
Three men are found smashing boulders with iron hammers. When asked what they are doing, the first man says, "Breaking big rocks into little rocks." The second man says, "Feeding my family." The third man says, "Building a cathedral."
To many of us who study and consult in occupational and organizational contexts, we would call what this third man does meaningful work.
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A well-known story relates the following encounter (adapted from Ryan, 1977):
Three men are found smashing boulders with iron hammers. When asked what they are doing, the first man says, "Breaking big rocks into little rocks." The second man says, "Feeding my family." The third man says, "Building a cathedral."
Today's column focuses on the third man, the one who saw each hammer blow as contributing to the construction of a cathedral, a home for human dreams and sacred aspirations. To many of us who study and consult in occupational and organizational contexts, we would call what this third man does meaningful work.
There are many perspectives on meaningful work, ranging from Marxist ideas about work that resists the dehumanizing influences of the Industrial Revolution to religious ideas about being called by a transcendent spirit to do Good Work in the world -- with everything in between. I have come to see meaningful work as consisting of three, central...
The Flash of Insight, The Grand Gesture, The Rousing Speech, The Last Straw. All of these are doppelgangers of The Big Thing, which too many of us wait for to come along and change our lives. The secret is, of course, that it's not coming. Worse, by waiting for The Big Thing, you could let the little things that make life rich, and accumulate into the important experiences of your life, slip away.
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When I talk to people about meaning in their lives, in their work, or in their love lives, the conversation invariably reaches a point where I can see the gears of their mind start to work furiously. This is the point in our chat where I've asked them what makes their lives feel meaningful and they start to feel like their answer isn't fancy enough. I guess it doesn't seem like enough to create strong and mutually nurturing relationships, parent a child, feel spiritualy inspired, venture forth into the world to find your niche in the vast global economy, or wrest occasional moments or serenity from the pinging, flashing pinball machine of life!
(The fact that my curiosity about what fills people's lives with meaning often provokes these kinds of responses is the leading bummer of being a meaning in life researcher!)
Right before my eyes, I can see their perspective on such things as being an inspired parent, generous lover, conscientious worker, or tranquil contemplator...
In Samuel Beckett's masterpiece "Waiting for Godot," two characters anxiously wait for a man they both claim to know but whom neither would recognize. Too often, it seems like people act like Beckett's characters, passively waiting for a meaning for their lives to come up and poke them in the chest and shout, "I am here!" How can we break out of this passivity?
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Somewhere around 2500 years ago, a little argument developed among a bunch of free Greek men with too much time on their hands and too many neurons for their own good. They were trying to create a definitive description of the Good Life. Their argument stretched across several decades, and many luminaries joined in; Gorgias, Aristotle, Aristuppus, Epicurus, Epictetus, Plato, etc.
Believe it or not, their argument isn't really settled even now.
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"The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less."
-Vaclav Havel-
For the sake of argument, let's say that the esteemed Vaclav Havel is right and we are bothered less and less by the question of meaning in our lives...is that bad? Several decades of research have been conducted on this question, and the evidence is strong.
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