The Purpose of Work – 3
Dr. Payne met with me the next week in my office at work. I shut the door and immediately unloaded my great burden on him, working myself into a lather about my untapped, underutilized, unacknowledged leadership potential that was completely going to waste. He let me rant for a while, and then he gave me some advice:
“As we get older and approach mid-life, it becomes more important to find joy in what we are doing rather than what we can achieve. Do you agree?
“Sure thing, Doc”
(What I was really thinking): “I don’t want joy, I want a kick-ass career upgrade! I want the stock grants and the IPO in two years and those business trips to Europe and the Caribbean!”
Dr. Payne definitely had the advantage here because he is about 15 years older than I am, so he might know something that I haven’t thought about yet. He talked about how things that were important to us when we are young do not bring us the same fulfillment as we start getting older. In order to stay happy and productive, we need to shift the way we look at our lives. This started to make sense. He continued.
“Because when we do things that bring us joy, it will ultimately bring joy to others. And then God opens up His pathways for us and you begin to experience His abundance. I have no doubt you will find your way to discover God’s purpose for your career. But right now I want you to spend the next few weeks paying very close attention to the things that bring you joy as you go through your work day. Write it down for me.”
OK, well, actually, joy isn’t so bad. I’m sure I could benefit from identifying the activities that bring me joy, since I’ve been so resltess and cynical lately. In fact, to be honest, I haven’t really thought about joy in my life much at all. Joy is good. Good idea.
Over the next few weeks I kept track of the things I did that brought me joy at work. Surprisingly, this was not difficult. It turns out there were many things about my job that were enjoyable. And keeping track of it kind of helped me to gravitate more towards those activities I found joy in. For me, they were things like working on high-level strategy projects, initiating major change, mentoring other guys in their jobs. When I stopped to pay attention, there was actually a lot of interesting things going on with my job that I truly enjoyed. I think I had been so focused on what I didn’t have, or what I thought I should have, that I was missing the opportunity to make the most of what was right in front of me. And maybe Dr. Payne was right. Maybe if I just keep focusing on the things I’m good at, the things I enjoy, then that tremendous new Chief Executive job would kind of show up at the right time, if it was part of God’s plan for me. I decided I was going to trust God on this and have a better attitude about my current work.
To be continued…
