Finding and Creating Meaningful Work
By Dave Smith
Trust that which gives you meaning and accept it as
your guide. ~Carl Jung
Meaning is very personal and unique to each individual and community.
No one can judge another’s work and say it is meaningful or
meaningless. But we can attempt to generalize and define it along
the lines of wants and needs. Abraham Maslow famously created his
hierarchy of needs: as each base need is satisfied, the next one
up the pyramid becomes more important, beginning with physiological
needs (food, water), to safety, belonging, esteem, and finally, self-actualization.
Anyone engaged in fulfilling their own, other people’s, or
their community’s real needs is probably doing meaningful work.
As an example, one could argue whether or not shaving is a need,
but for many it is. Razors occurred in the Bronze Age, and a nick-name
for the straight razor in modern times was “cut-throat” razor.
The safety razor was invented in the mid-1800s and allowed more people
to shave themselves safely.
The safety razor with disposable blades was invented in 1903. Was
that meaningful? Then the dual blade safety razor was invented, and
now we have 5 and 6 blade disposable safety razors that are silly
and extremely wasteful. Consumers who were perfectly satisfied with
the twin-blade safety razor can no longer buy one. Somewhere along
the line inventing and making safety razors lost meaning by going
from a need to a want and on to competitive one-upmanship.
When can we determine if our community’s needs fit with what
we are here to do? Our community may not purchase a product or service
that is our passion, so we either have to educate them so they understand
the need, or support ourselves in other ways so we can do what is
meaningful to us on our own time. Van Gogh only sold one painting
in his life and was supported by his brother, but the world eventually
caught up with his passion. How much are you willing to sacrifice
to live your passion?
To find or create meaningful work we first need to find our passion.
People often misquote Joseph Campbell “Follow your bliss and
the money will come.” But what he really said was "If
you follow your bliss, you will always have your bliss, money or
not. If you follow money, you may lose it, and you will have nothing."
Another alternative is to either tweak our passion to fit the community,
or tweak the community to fit our passion. Unfortunately, we live
and work in a throwaway consumer culture, built on cheap energy,
which is unsustainable and produces much that is totally meaningless,
unneeded and harmful. But that is beginning to change as energy prices
rise and we become more locally focused. Years ago E.F. Schumacher
said, “Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology
towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant, and
the beautiful.”
There is so much meaningful work that needs to be done to get us
from where we are now to where we need to be that there is an almost
limitless need for meaningful work that will match up with our
own passion. If the community refuses to support your passion,
then you may need to get passionate about changing the community.
A local radio personality used to say “If you don’t
like the news go out and make some of your own.”
Finding or organizing an affinity group is the final step. We are
much more effective working together than working alone, and work
is much more meaningful when it is part of a shared, cooperative
process with others who have similar values. We may turn our group
into a small, local business or a non-profit community organization.
Purposeful, progressive change that makes the world a better place
takes risk and daring by people who care and work together for the
common good.
It is incredibly difficult to finance and build the successful entrepreneurial,
outside financed, fast growth, early-exit, get rich quick business
that is so celebrated by our business culture. And most of it is
so meaningless, little variations on a theme rather than something
really new, that the main motivation is often to get enough money
that we can get drunk everyday and go sleep on the beach for the
rest of our lives and never have to work again. Is this really what
we all came here for?
The alternative is the local, small, service-oriented business that
provides a service or products that are needed and delightful…friends
and family scraping some capital together to create a business that
serves its community, and that the community loves. As rising energy
prices erode the economic viability of the huge transnational businesses
with long supply lines that now dominate our economy, it will be
the small local farms, shops, and trades that will once again form
the heart of our communities. (editor’s note: Let’s financially
support those individually owned business who support the dreams
of individuals and our community rather than the mega-corporations
that under pay, over work and drain the life’s blood from their
employees.)
The basics of good business will still hold: find a need -- a real
need -- and fill it… organically, gently, non-violently, elegantly,
and beautifully.
Dave Smith is the co-founder of Smith & Hawken and author of
To Be Of Use – The Seven Seeds of Meaningful Work.
His website is www.tobeofuse.com.
