(Jottings from Marsha Sinetar, Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow: Discovering Your Right Livelihood, Dell Publishing, 666 Fifth Avenue, NY, 10103, 1987).
Introductory notes: 1. I bought this from Denver's largest bookshop, oddly called 'The Tattered Cover Book Store', November 1990, in the month I was deciding to resign from World Vision, and 'go it alone' to begin John Mark Ministries, serving pastors and ex-pastors. 2. Marsha Sinetar is an organizational psychologist, mediator and writer, who has also written Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics (Paulist Press, 1986). [A superficial reading could conclude she is New Age-ish. I don't think she is, although I would have liked more Bible and less Suzuki (the Zen Suzuki, that is). Thomas Merton is obviously a favourite of hers - and also of mine. But her linking 'integrity' with Merton's notion of 'final integration' limits the potential of that concept, unfortunately. With those reservations, she is worth reading].
# What you can conceive you can achieve: do what you love, the money will follow!
# Work, love, play and devotion are unified into a cohesive activity for the fully developed, self-actualizing personality.
1. Your work ought to fit your personality as shoes fit your feet. Otherwise you're destined for discomfort! Every species in the natural world has a place and function that is specifically suited to its capabilities. The very best way to relate to your work is to choose it. Once you accept your talents as a blueprint for a satisfying vocational life, then you can stop looking to others for approval and direction. Abraham Maslow's 'self-actualizing' personalities ensure that their entire lives become an outward expression of their true inner selves. They have a sense of their own worth and are likely to experiment, to be creative, to ask for what they want and need. Their high self-esteem and subsequent risk-taking/creativity bring them a host of competencies that are indispensable to locating work they want. They also develop the tenacity and optimism which allows them to stick with their choices until the financial rewards come. They are life affirming...
The best-kept secret is that people want to work hard for something they feel is meaningful, something they believe in. Quaker Douglas Steere: 'Work without contemplation is never enough'.
2. People with high self-esteem hear themselves, are able to pay attention to the silent, indwelling push to pursue one career or life-path over another. They know they must respond to trouble, so they face squarely whatever challenges they meet. They are willing to pay the costs of being in charge of their own lives. Sometimes, yes, they will feel spent, fatigued, perhaps even fearful. (Coach Vince Lombardi: 'Fatigue makes cowards of all of us'). Self-esteem is our earliest self-verdict.
3. We must, however, come to know and accept our dark side - our 'shadow' as Jung called it. In terms of the elder brother in the story of the Prodigal Son, the work of our adult lives - if we have not learned it in childhood or adolescence - is to quiet the voice of the 'second son'.
Idea-incubation means resting, being alone, thinking in solitude (so unlearn part of your inherited Puritan work ethic!). If you're creative, you may have to flout the company's open door policy and work in isolation (accepting the criticisms of others). 'Time out' activities are important - like sleeping, watching TV, fishing, listening to music, daydreaming a little...
When we cling to parental 'shoulds' we may cast ourselves out of our own house. Strokes ('units of human recognition') from others are good, but treating yourself well is better. Listen to yourself through your dreams. Gayle Delaney, a noted dream therapist, suggests (Living Your Dreams) that prior to sleep, you could ask yourself for the kind of dream you wish to have ('dream incubation'), though perhaps a bad dream is the thing in us that we fear just wanting our love. Forgiving ourselves dissolves all kinds of unhealthy attitudes - about ourselves and about the other. Jung taught us that the shadowy self of questionable courage or virtue is our dark brother, without whom we could not be whole.
With pen and notebook handy, ask yourself 'What is my life's real purpose?' 'How, specifically, would I have to think, speak and act in order to bring it into being?' 'What activities - daily choices, attitudes and concrete accomplishments - would I do if I lived as if my purpose meant something to me?' 'How would I live, on a day to day basis, if I respected myself, others, my life's purpose?'
4. 'Small steps', day by day, are important. One of the hallmarks of self-defeat is to try to do things in a grand manner and show others how great we are. People with low self-esteem often idealize themselves by seeing themselves achieve in a flashy manner. They bite off too much and set themselves up for failure. So what small daily actions fill me with delight, make me feel energized and optimistic?
5. The unfulfilled prefer comfort over challenge, safety over growth. 'Amniosis', says John Sanford, is an inability to come out of the amniotic fluid and be born, a desire to return to the safe hiding place of the womb. They want to go through life without making any ripples. Indeed, Psychiatrist Robert Lindner (Prescription for Rebellion, NY: Grove Press, 1952) believed that adjustment was a synonym for conformity, and society conditions each human infant away from his or her own uniqueness. Successful rebels transcend these barriers.
6. A 'Script' is a parental/ancestral blueprint for an individual's life. So we are dominated by 'shoulds': men should be active, strong, brave, should not show their vulnerable side... So, says Levinson, people suffering 'burn-out' have * chronic fatigue, * anger at those making demands, * self-criticism for putting up with the demands, * cynicism, negativism and irritability, * a sense of being besieged, and * hair-trigger display of emotions... Males sometimes would rather die in battle than risk being a 'coward'; or would rather die at their desks prematurely than free themselves from their compulsive patterns and pursuits.
Women are also highly influenced by family, media or friends, perhaps achieving self-definition through Super-Mom status. So 84% of private psychotherapy patients, 70% of those using medically-prescribed mood-altering drugs, are women. Women are allowing themselves and their 'conditions' to be largely defined by men. They sometimes assume an inordinate responsibility for their husband's, parent's or children's happiness and comfort.
So: find role models, people already living the way you want to live; write down in your journal the positive things you do each day; in a quiet period, reward yourself with some encouragement at the end of each working day - this reinforces the good things you are learning to do.
7. You will have to give up safety if you want to grow. The confident person knows 'No matter what comes along, I can figure out a solution'. But they must stay away from negative people, and get out of bed (preferably early) in the morning! They will also measure their worth, not by the amount they earn, but by 'inner wealth'. They produce what other people want, but often just enough monetarily to support themselves and their family. So once we have a clear idea of our goals, and of our inner talents, the money will follow. But we mustn't be intimidated by a culture that equates high monetary worth with worth as a person.
8. Resourcefulness is little more than creativity, and innovative types will try something new, even when they have other responsibilities (such as families to support). They are never too 'old' to do what they really want.
Dr William Glasser, a Los Angeles psychiatrist, studied people who had a long history of some sort of disciplined activity like meditation or long-distance running. In Positive Addiction he suggests there are many psychological advantages in the practice of a personal, solitary, regular discipline for at least one hour per day for several months. This helps us believe in ourselves, knowing that we have all the skill, intelligence and wit to meet our every need.
9. 'The majority work to make a living; some work to acquire wealth or fame, while a few work because there is something within them which demands expression... Only a few truly love it' (Edmond Boreaux Szekely). Workaholics are motivated by fear: they are alienated, anxious, aggressive, stressed individuals who use work to stave off buried hostility, maladaptive social attitudes, and feelings of inadequacy. Workaphiles 'have light' in themselves (Schweitzer): they don't crave respect or rank, titles, large offices, special parking places, top floor suites...
10. Here is Thomas Merton's translation of a classical poem by Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu:
When an archer is shooting for nothing he has all the skills. If he shoots for a brass buckle, he is already nervous... The prize divides him. He cares. He thinks more of winning than of shooting - and the need to win Drains him of power.
Mother Teresa was in Ethiopia, amongst one of its worst droughts and famine. She was caring for the needy, blessing dying children, although people were dying around her at alarming rates. A reporter who happened on the scene asked her if she didn't get discouraged seeing, day after day, so many people die despite her efforts to help them. She briskly replied, 'We are not here to be successful. We are here to be faithful.'
Vocationally integrated persons do not long for love: they have it. They do not yearn for happiness: they have it. They do not strive for completion, finality, satisfaction: they have these... The healthier the personality, the more likely that the individual experiences his or her entire life (including their vocational life) in this abundant manner.
As Erich Fromm once wrote when talking about active listening, to be concentrated in anything makes us more awake, while every unconcentrated, unconscious activity fatigues us, makes us more tired. When we learn to function with full concentration and purposefulness, we are the ones who are energized, activated, alert.
Through these acts and attitudes, we grow to see that our work is more than something by which to 'earn a living'; it is that which helps us build our life.
