Recovering purpose

I was reading a very interesting article in The Observer sunday newspaper yesterday (the address may be found here - http://observer.guardian.co.uk/columists/story/o,,1729171,00.html

The title of the article, by Will Hutton, was 'You're 35 and experienced. Let's face it you're useless.'

In this article, Hutton discusses a book by Richard Sennett called "The Culture of the New Capitalism" which posits the idea that modern work patterns make self-respect taken from our working lives, an awful lot harder to achieve. Sennett states that most of us ordinary, average Joes/Joesses work in the expectation that our experience and job knowledge make us worthwhile and worthy of respect in our chosen fields (however mundane those might happen to be); however, the new cultural phenomena that he discusses suggests that we are only viewed as valuable for what we might be able to do in the future. We are only valuable if we are able to embrace the future and be the kind of person who ".. will repudiate the past, trash their own experience and embrace the short-term opportunity."

This idea about flexibility, being constantly ready to retrain etc. links into the ideas that exist in our Western society about globalisation - that this a good thing and makes the world a better place, developing economies and creating new jobs for those people phased out of 'old' industries. What Sennett claims is that for most people, this development in our society gives them an 'intensifying sense of their own uselessness'.

Sennett makes some valid points but we need to be careful about harking back to some past 'golden age' of the world of work. No or very slow change is just as difficult to deal with as change that appears to happen faster than the speed of light. Hutton agrees that Sennett makes some valid points and states, at the end of the article, that 'how to recover purpose should be on our political agenda and part of our national conversation.' Obviously, a conversation, in public and at all levels, needs to be had. The problem is that one solution - that we cease to define our lives by the jobs we do is not in the interests of the employers who pay us. They need us to commit to them, their organisations, our jobs so that we'll work hard and be productive for as long as they need us (not for as long as we need them - please note). So I am afraid that this conversation is unlikely to be heard by the vast majority of our working society - it is not in capitalisms best interests for us to have the conversation.

As a taoist, it is necessary to step outside this situation and look at it in a slightly more detached way. Unless we are very lucky, all of us need to perform some type of work for a large proportion of our lives. However, what we should not do is allow this facet of who we are to dominate the centre, our actual selves. Once we detach ourselves from our 'job', perhaps the constant rush to change/retrain/cast out the old will be easier to deal with. The way that we work and gain meaning from our careers is a constant process of evolution. As Andrew Cohen says 'Evolution is not a mindless process. It demands and needs our participation'.

So the choice is simple, we can stand on the bank of the fast-flowing river, looking at the terrifying speed of the water and allow our fear to either prevent us from moving or make us plunge in in an unplanned way; or we can look for way to navigate the river, to become one with it, to understand it so that we can emerge from the other side, like the old man that Confucious observed, unharmed.

Tag Taoism