On Work

In the context of how I am thinking about the nature of work, regardless of our age, state of health, employment status, or stage of life we are all involved in it, simply for the fact that we are alive and breathing. There’s the work of household upkeep, whether we live solo or with others. The work of education. The work we do for money. The work we do on the daily to keep our self fed. The work of caretaking for others and for our self.

Applying mindfulness practice to the field and realm of work is what I consider to be advanced, next-level practice. By which I mean, tough stuff.

The question is, how do we apply our practice to our work? With whatever kind of work we do, job related or otherwise, how do we integrate our practice into it; how do we actively enable our work to be an extension of our practice?

When it comes to working for pay, I’m hard-pressed to think of a job that isn’t taxing, at least once-in-a-while. Whether we interact with other people all day or with a computer; whether we do manual labor or are sedentary, each and every job has its hardships and stresses. Its petty annoyances and large frustrations. Its routine complications and unscheduled upsets.

In the office-type job I do remotely, when I’m hip deep in emails that need responding to, a sea of phone calls that need returning, and a host of computer-based tasks that need my attention; when there’s loads to do and only so much time in the day, developing creative ways to apply my practice to my work is not only what helps to keep me grounded, but is fundamentally necessary to keep me sane.

Long, Hard Day at the Office

This post is an effort to deliver an important PSA: Stress is real and part of life and there’s no such thing as being “above” the sway of it. Thinking that it’s some kind of personal moral or spiritual failure when we feel maxed out or stressed out, is a sign that we have more work to do in the personal growth department. 

I find it continuously disappointing that when I attempt to share honestly with someone that I’ve had a hard day, I am then in the position of needing to do one of two things: 1) put up with unsolicited, unwelcome, unneeded, and typically unhelpful advice or 2) muster up the energy it takes (and don’t currently have) to qualify that I’m not broken and therefore not in need of fixing.

Friday was a long, hard day in the office. Without going into too many details that no one will find interesting, I’ll just say that the phone kept ringing, the emails kept coming, problems kept presenting, tech glitches kept happening, and the struggle to keep all the balls in the air was real.

Upon discovering that I work as a paid employee in the registration office of a Buddhist monastery, some people seem to be wildly confused about how there could possibly be such stress involved in the work that we do. People also seem to have strange notions centered around “if you’re a good practitioner, then stress should no longer be a thing.” So this is me wanting to share with you that despite the setting, office work is still office work. Computer work is still computer work. And customer service still means interacting with lots of humans, who are not calling or emailing to tell you how good of a job you’re doing. 

Additional important PSA: Anyone who works in a job field that involves interfacing with the daily demands of the public all day are unsung heroes, many of whom are over-worked and under-paid. May we all up our game and be nicer.

I don’t think it’s common knowledge that there’s a way to recognize & interact with stress without catastrophizing the situation. That there’s a way to be present with stress when it arises in a way that does’t involve falling into the depths of its current. That feeling stressed out is NOT a moral failure, but simply part of what it means to be human. I think the fact that I am able to experience stress without allowing it to reduce my self-worth, and not view it as an indicator that I’m doing something wrong, is a foreign concept to most people. Hence the need I see for this particular post. 

Work worth doing

There ain’t just one way
one catch-all setting
for being “woke.”

There’s a gradient scale
on which we all fall.

It ain’t a matter of
whether we are woke or not woke,
it’s a matter of where we are on the scale.

It’s about knowing no matter where we are,
we will always have further to go
more work to do.

There ain’t no end game
to woke-ness
no end of the line.

How can we possibly think
that in the span of one human being
exists the possibility
of tending to all the important matters
that would benefit us all in transforming?

Understanding, healing, support, and advocacy
are needed for so many threads that comprise
our global landscape:
our homeless population;
those with mental illness;
the health of our environment;
animal cruelty in slaughterhouses;
our LGBTQ+ community;
our BIPOC community;
justice reform;
young single mothers;
inner city youth;
our working class poor;
abuse victims;
those who are differently abled;
those we are sick and suffering;
our elderly population;
those who have the disease of addiction;
refugees in need of a safe place to land;
abandoned and neglected children…

Let us not declare our self “woke.”
Let us not shame others for not being “woke.”
Let us instead lean into the fortitude
of our human family
and focus and commit our own self
to the work we’re called forth to do.

Let us know our work

do our work

and work hard

at work worth doing.