Lessons in Gratitude

Tonight I find myself thinking once again about the concept of “right livelihood.” I am borrowing from a Buddhist phrase that has to do with finding and doing work that is aligned with one’s spiritual values and with certain Buddhist precepts. For my purposes what I am describing is the notion that a person who is doing work that they love, that feeds their soul, that “feels right” is a very fortunate person indeed. Increasingly I am encountering people who are feeling a sense of misalignment, of not feeling like they’re in the right place doing the right thing. Or I am talking with people who have a sense that they are called or meant to do something more, something larger than what they’re doing right now. They are out of alignment in a different way, and are feeling restless and disquieted, and often dissatisfied with what they are doing.

I have been in that space and have not fully emerged from it yet. While I believe I am currently where I’m supposed to be, doing work that I committed to doing, I have also had a sense that there’s more out there for me and that whatever that is will find me when the time is right. In the meantime I am grateful for the work I’m doing and the people who are working alongside me both at my current institution and colleagues who are doing similar work across the country. I was in conversation with just such a colleague today, a person who does similar work to mine at an institution in another state. She was visiting this area to attend a conference.

When I asked her how she was doing she told me she was trying to sort out her “what’s next,” that she was looking for a new job and/or a new purpose. She is experiencing  the sense of restlessness, the desire to be doing something different, something larger with her life, even though she couldn’t yet describe what that is or how it might play itself out. I spent some time listening to her talk, offering her my thoughts about how she could listen for cues and clues that would point her in the a new direction, that would at least show her the next step or two she needs to take on her journey.

In the past few days I have spoken to friends and family members who find themselves in work situations that are less than satisfactory–where their skills are not valued or where the work that they’re doing doesn’t play to their strengths or draw upon their creativity. As a result, they often feel badly about themselves, dissatisfied and yet uncertain about what to do about it. I’ve been in that place often enough to know the terrain very well.  What I know about it is that  in order to get someplace else, you have to first acknowledge where you are and then begin to define where you want to go and what it looks like. If you don’t set a destination then how will you know how to get there and how will you know when you’ve arrived? I’ll be in conversation with them in the weeks ahead. Perhaps we can each begin sketching out for ourselves what some potential new directions might look like and thereby beginning to lay out the mileposts for the trip.

I’m grateful for these times of restlessness that hit occasionally. They nudge me to ask questions of and check in with myself. Often what I learn guides me onto a slightly different path–usually nothing drastic or dramatic–that takes me farther down the road in the direction my life is meant to take. I’m hopeful that I can be of assistance to others who are likewise on this journey of discovering what’s next. My first piece of advice, relax, pay attention to the signs and let them lead you to the next steps. I guarantee that as you begin to quiet your mind, shutting down all the noise and distraction it can make, the answers are there. Good words for me to remind myself as well. And so I shall.

Tonight I am exhausted. On the one hand it’s Wednesday, “hump day” as it’s often called, meaning that it’s in the middle of the work week with only two more days until the weekend. From my vantage point this evening, it has already felt like a really long week with more really long days ahead. I have all day meetings on Friday, including an evening event, and a conference on Saturday that I expect to last from early morning until early evening. I am sorting out how to take care of my dog in the midst of this and how to keep my energy level up for the next several days. In spite of all of this, as well as the consequent drama that seems to bubble up from a variety of places at work, I am exceedingly grateful to be working, and not just for the fact of being employed but to be where I am doing what I am doing.

I will hasten to add that my workplace and situation are far from ideal in some fairly practical ways: there’s plenty I could complain about and be justified in it. But for the most part the opportunities and positives far outweigh the challenges and the negatives. I do, however, have moments when I want to run screaming from the various meetings and appointments that sometimes clog my calendar and mind, hindering my performance of actual work. Nonetheless, the meetings are often necessary evils and there doesn’t appear to be an end in sight anyway.

As tired as I am at the end of days like this, I am so grateful that this exhaustion emerges from my having taxed my mental faculties working on interesting, complex, and challenging issues that require me to do my most creative and strategic thinking. This weariness comes from the political wrangling, delicate dancing through personalities and interpersonal dynamics, juggling of budgets and finances and deadlines. It’s crazymaking. But I can also think back to exhaustion associated with packing up and moving having lost a job and a significant relationship and the painful and angst-filled uncertainty of not having steady employment to support myself and my family. There’s exhaustion and there’s exhaustion. The physical manifestations might appear quite similar, but the origins and the severity of the circumstances that bring it on are quite different.

It’s going to be a demanding couple of days ahead. (I hope my blog doesn’t suffer too much from the late nights I expect I’ll have between now and Sunday.) Demanding but good. My task this week is to remember to breathe, relax, be in the moment as best I can, remain calm and keep moving. At a meeting this morning I found myself saying, “What am I doing? I really just want to go be a farmer!” It’s a sentiment I express from time to time, questioning my sanity in doing work that sometimes seems endless, hopeless, and undervalued. Part of my heart yearns for the relative simplicity and apolitical practice of raising crops and livestock, tending to the things of nature, land, water and sun. Then I come back to reality.

There is a time for rest. I don’t think that time is right now, not yet, at least not for me in what I am being called upon to do. So while it’s important to take a breather every now and then, now isn’t the time to take a break or retire or take a vacation. Right now is a time to keep moving and in the meantime doing those things to take care of myself in the midst of the activity. There’s an writing that says, “Let’s not get weary of doing what is good, for at the right time we will reap a harvest—if we do not give up.” So while I have the energy, I’ll keep at it.

So for tonight  I’ll take my rest, rising tomorrow to start it up again. It’s what I do, it’s what so very many have done for generations: worked to make the world a better place. It might sound corny, but it’s true. I am grateful not only to have work, but to know that my work matters. And for that I am truly grateful.