How were we taught, as children, to think of our future work lives? How are we, in turn, teaching our children? Why are children so often limited to one dream, at best? Perhaps adults try to avoid the emotional dissonance that they would feel if they acknowledged their own limited dreaming. Take a moment, if you would, to list five imaginary lives. These would be five roles or identities in life that intrigue you, regardless of income, gender, or social position. Now, consider your list. Any surprises? Do any of these lives resonate with childhood dreams? Is there an adult part of you that reads the list and says, "That's all fine and dandy, but you couldn't let yourself actually live those lives"? Five years ago, I was a mono-worker. I primarily identified myself as a psychotherapist. That's how I earned my living. All of my other interests were delegated to categories such as hobbies and leisure activities. I was also fairly unsatisfied, and I was challenged financially. Then I began a course called The Artist's Way and allowed myself to fantasize five imaginary lives. Today, five years later, I'm actually living some of those lives, and earning portions of my income through them. There are drawbacks, of course. It's difficult to fit "Jungian Psychotherapist, Creativity Coach, Hatha Yoga Teacher, Musician, and Music Teacher" all onto one business card. However, for me, personally, the benefits far outweigh any disadvantages. There are many facets to who we are as people, yet few single jobs address all of that rich complexity. My premise for this article is to suggest that some people might benefit and achieve a greater sense of personal balance by diversifying their work lives. Each person has different needs for attending to the different "parts of self": the physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, playful, and creative dimensions of the personality. Hopefully this article will help you to better assess how well these needs are currently being met through your work. Through personal experience, I've come to believe that a good workday should include some degree of (a) intellectual stimulation, (b) creative satisfaction (including a sense of authorship) (c) emotional outlets, (d) sufficient exercise and physical challenge, (e) play, and (f) fulfillment of purpose, destiny, or fate. I also believe that one needs to maintain good nutrition, spend time working both alone and with others, and spend time learning and some time teaching. Any good farmer knows to let some fields lie fallow for a season while they are refertilized or else risk depleting the land and growing poor crops. Yet as workers, we expect high productivity, day after day, year after year, from the same overly worked parts of our personalities. How can we learn to honor our own internal seasons? People used to do certain work at different times of the year. In contemporary culture, however, we do not differentiate amongst our different needs. We have fallen out of contact with nature. A basic principle of macrobiotics is eating food during its season. I believe there should be a similar principle for conducting our work lives. In an era of downsizing and forced retirement, workers actually make themselves vulnerable by only knowing how to do one thing. We are susceptible to obsoleteness should our job functions be replaced by new technology or a younger, lower-paid workforce. Diversity in work creates greater resiliency. Obviously, everybody can't do everything, nor would they want to. We no longer live in an era of generalism, when each person used to do a great many things every day. Rather, we live in an era of specialization. Some people will necessarily be better suited by temperament and other traits to work at one job, whereas others would suffer, physically and psychically, doing the same work. Though our society forced us toward specialization with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, it does not really support true choice. Until different jobs are reimbursed at a more similar level, then certain jobs will be avoided regardless of how well suited they might be for a person. Why shouldn't it be viable for a person to spend part of the day as a corporate executive and part as a dishwasher? Do we ever consider that currently underpaid jobs like dishwashing could bring fulfillment to the right person, as long as other of his or her needs were also fulfilled through work? If one can only receive health care, sick leave, pension, etc. from full-time employment, then people will typically choose full-time employment over personal satisfaction, especially if there is a family at home for whom to provide. Social reform will be necessary to enable people to realistically enact personal reform. Why couldn't workers receive money or credits toward various benefits based on the sum total of their various jobs? Not everyone needs to work forty-hour weeks. Some people would better meet their inner and outer needs by downshifting to a more appropriate workload. Yet, in our black and white work worlds, one either receives benefits or doesn't, based on a somewhat arbitrary work level. On the flip side of the coin, many companies hesitate to hire full-time employees today, not wanting to award costly benefits. Many workers have been forced to diversify their work lives simply because they can't make it financially by working one job any longer. Is it possible to proactively choose diversification rather than be forced toward it by job burnout or downsizing? A current symptom in our culture is the phenomenon of attention deficit disorder or ADD, manifested in both children and adults. Is difficulty maintaining attention really the problem in all cases here or, rather, is ADD serving as a cultural symptom, pointing to the fact that we expect people to attend to lives not worthy of their attention? One or only a few slightly varying activities are insufficient to hold either an adult's or a child's attention for an entire eight-hour period. Might it not be, in some cases, that ADD is a sign of health in children and adults, a manifestation the soul's silent rebellion of a life lived too small? Even large companies might benefit if their workforces were more fulfilled and less resentful. Children who are always around one or two parents grow resentful and blaming toward those caretakers, whereas, in the case of extended family situations, children seem to thrive under the care of multiple caring adults. Perhaps we would all take more interest in a job that helped fulfill the various parts of us without squelching other parts. Even if we work only one job, there are ways that we can better balance the various parts of ourselves at work by paying better attention to self-care. Take every break that is allowed you; don't skip meals, and eat wholesome food, not food that will further stress you; use your break times to stretch, walk, relax; take advantage of any stress management programs that your place of employment offers (on-site massage, gym memberships and other exercise programs); beautify your workplace so that it is a place worth being. I've tried to not assume that everyone has the same needs, nor to communicate, "I've discovered the single way that everyone should live their lives." Some of my personal discoveries were painfully forced upon me by circumstance. I've often envied people with one seemingly secure job, provided with vacation pay, dental, and the many other wonderful fringes not provided by self-employment. I do know, however, that I have gradually reclaimed a great deal of lost soul as I have better addressed the various needs of my soul in the realm of financially compensated work. Balance is an ideal. It cannot ever be achieved and maintained over a prolonged period. We are constantly engaged in a balancing act in which we move from one side to the other of an idealized center. May you better find your personal center and move from that place, safely and diversely, out into your world. Paul Fedorowicz, M.A., is a Jungian-oriented psychotherapist in private practice in Seattle with 15 years’ experience. Paul is also a creativity coach, utilizing The Artist's Way in ongoing support groups (starting in January) and retreats (Breitenbush Hot Springs retreat: May 4-7). For more information, call Paul at (206) 720-0091. |
Imagine the following scenario: A child of five or six is asked, by an adult, what it would like to be when it grows up. The child innocently, yet enthusiastically, answers, "When I grow up, I'm going to be a musician — and a dancer — and a cook!" The adult chuckles and says, all-knowingly, "You can't be all those things at once. You've got to choose one. Besides, you won't make any money doing those things!" The child then follows the sage advice of its elder and grows up to be a mono-worker, gaining identity in life through one title and one job description.