Hello everyone,
Have you ever taken the time to really think about why you work? What you want out of your career? What you want out of life? Maybe you’re too busy to think about such things? I remember when I was too busy.
I would work day to day just trying to finish the work so I could go home and do it all over again the very next day. Days would go by in a blur. Days would flash by; even weeks and months would disappear without my knowing exactly what I had accomplished. Work would not feel like I was getting anywhere or accomplishing anything worth while.
I currently work for many reasons, some of which you may not even have thought of.
I personally think most people work to get money to feed their family, provide shelter, clothing and education and take some recreation at times. I do not think this is a bad thing. Some of this thinking is necessary. Just needs to be put into perspective when looking at the big picture. Depending on what country you live in, a luxury might be expected and in other countries others are getting by with far less
Besides providing essentials for yourself and family, I perceive the value of work and one’s feeling of contributing is essential to sound mind and body. I think you need to discover the meaning of your work yourself. If you do this work will not seem like work. If you discover the meaning in your work you will soon see actual accomplishments happen. First a few accomplishments; then more and more accomplishments will grow. These accomplishments will keep building like wooden building blocks stacking on each other. After a while you look around and you have found you have accomplished something pretty good and your stack of blocks is rather tall. You may have helped yourself, employer, others in the community you live in or others all over the world.
I have had the unlucky experience of not being able to work when I truly wanted to. I felt very helpless. Without the ability to work and provide for my family and to feel like I was helping others was very stressful. I lost my eye sight completely and instantly, lost the ability to walk for one year, became diabetic and got neuropathy in both legs. All happened at once after becoming critically ill. It took many months in hospital with many surgeries and procedures before I could leave and come home.
After getting home I would lay awake at nights wondering how I could return to work as soon as possible. Since I could not sleep much I filled this extra time with additional training. I had very much to accomplish and wanted to complete what I needed as soon as possible. I would spend my waking hours training myself on all the assistive technology that would allow me to return to work successfully. Learned to stand up and eventually walk again with help from two canes. It took many, many hours of this training. I had it set in my mind that I was not going to fail. This was not an option for me.
The value of work is so essential to me everything I have done to get to the point I am has been worth it for sure. I would do it again if I had to. I have discovered the meaning of the work I do and really enjoy it! Hope we can help you to discover the meaning in your work.
Some activities that helped me to discover the meaning in my work.
• I work on very exciting projects at the place of my employment.
• Help the disabled be more successful when I can, at place of employment.
• Help non-profits in my community help others with disabilities.
• Serve in other local organizations and help with diversity at my place of employment.
I have found my meaning in work. I sure hope I can keep this vision. Would not want to go back to the days when each day would go by like a blur.
Has anyone else discovered the meaning in their work? We would like to hear about it. Are you having difficulties discovering what your meaning is? Wonder what the term “discovering the meaning in your work” means?
Any thoughts? Might even have different meanings depending on what country you live in.
Would like to hear from others on topic. We want us all to discover the meaning in our work.
Look forward to talking with you.
Bill Tipton
Contributing Author,
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/
Hi Bill. I've thought long and hard about this one. A couple thoughts came to my mind. First is that when you do a job, what you're actually doing is helping somebody or a group of people. A few weeks ago I started to work for the Infant Welfare Society, stuffing envelopes. However, due to a problem with the printer, that job is on hold. When I did that job, however, I was helping out the Infant Welfare Society, whose mission I am rather unsure of. I did a Google search for them and the link I clicked on required a password to view the site. So I left because I didn't want to run the risk of harming my computer. But anyway, that job was a lot of fun so far. This morning I put in a phone call to find out the job status, and someone is supposed to call me back. I had also been teaching a neighbor Windows but that is also on hold at least from what I can gather. However, there is one thing which I truly dislike in all this. That is, a lot of times my phone calls have not been returned. This has happened not just with that neighbor, but several other people whom I will not mention right now. I am pretty sure this neighbor is still interested, at least that is what he says. But how can I be sure of that? Some people here have suggested that I am trying to control this neighbor in some ways, if you know what I mean. However, this isn't the case at all. I like him as a friend, and I want to help him out. I am not in any way trying to do anything more than just be his friend. Other than these two jobs, only one of which is supposedly going to be a paid job, I have nothing else going except for a few leisure activities which I do in my spare time which lately has been almost all day, if not all day 24-7. There have been a few exceptions. There are also daily chores which need to be done around the apartment, and I help my roommate with those. This leads me to my second thought, which is in part related to the first thought. I really need to get out of the apartment more and do stuff. I may or may not be going home this week to be with two of my sisters while our parents are out of town. But this is dependent on the Infant Welfare Society job.
Posted by: Jake | July 24, 2006 at 12:16 PM
I got side-tracked yesterday and was not able to finish what I wanted to say. I found out that the Infant Welfare Society job is most likely starting up again next week. In an earlier post or two I mentioned that I have not yet had an O&M assessment. This had been one of my goals in order to determine how much O&M instruction I will actually need, and what specifically that O&M instruction is to focus on. However, due to an extremely bureaucratic system with workers who have a most paternalistic attitude, I have had no such assessment. At this point, however, I will admit to not really needing any formal O&M instruction. I am going to take a cab tomorrow night to my parents' house to be with two of my sisters while our folks are out of town, and I've done that many times before so I am quite comfortable with it. I have used the same cab company now for a long time, and they have been truly wonderful. There were a few occasions when I had nasty and rude drivers who didn't want to help, but it seems that all the rude drivers have left the company upon me reporting said drivers. One of my future goals is to take cabs and not always rely on friends and family. However, I still feel I need some O&M instruction in order to be able to give drivers adequate enough directions. Most drivers I think know where they're going even if they are not native to this country, but in the past I have had to attempt to give directions. I have contacted a few members of my FLFP team, a team assembled to assist me in goal planning and then meeting those goals. The fact remains that in order to have a job one must be able to find his or her way to the work site. It does not work the other way around, possibly with a few exceptions.
Posted by: Jake | July 25, 2006 at 12:24 PM