How do you reply when this question is posed? It is a customary enough question that often supposes an retort linked to one's state of employment. This highlights the ubiquitous nature of us finding ourselves straight through what we do. Typical answers delineate to one's job title, employing organisation or profession. Other answers delineate to past employment: 'Oh I'm an unemployed electrician', 'I'm not working right now whilst I raise my children'. All these answers delineate to some external criteria against which the retort is framed - it is as if 'I am ok if I am employed, have some capability bestowed on me by some employing organisation and have been recognised as indispensable enough to have my services used by someone else '. We also collectively attribute value to the jobs we hold, apparent in answers like 'I am only waitressing whilst I terminate my degree' as if we want others to know we are destined for better things. However, what happens when you determine to change career, direction or simply how you spend your time?
I have recently moved out of the city after twenty six years. The purpose as been to seek what I believe is a better capability of life with more time to reflect on how I am living life. I had an established psychological convention in the city but was so preoccupied with 'chasing my tail' that I chose to take off myself from it for a while and see what happened. The journey is proving to be eye-opening.
Flounder
How difficult it appeared for friends and colleagues to understand why I should make such a move. Comments like 'You will back in the city within 3 months'; 'What will you do with yourself' and 'But what exactly are you going to do?' were customary responses. Try as I might to explain the desire to attain a more integrated life rather than the juggling act linked with work/life balance, citizen were baffled as to what I was doing. However, this all changed when I replied 'I am taking a sabbatical'. Sighs of relief were heard from all quarters as citizen said 'Ah, that's what you are doing!' Suddenly I could be compartmentalised and therefore understood and linked to more unquestionably by others.
I now struggle with answering the question when new citizen I meet ask me what I am do. I flounder, wondering how one label could perhaps explain the enormity of internal changes that are taking place as I contemplate a more integrated life. 'Am I a psychologist, author, administration consultant - all areas in which I have worked - or someone on sabbatical?'
What does this example reveal? I believe it reveals something basic about the anxiety that arises when we are unable to pigeon-hole ourselves and other people. Over time we accumulate labels that define for ourselves and others who we are. Many of these are work-related and often we find that we are expending too much power in this sphere. So in finding to gain greater fulfilment, we often look for greater work/life balance. However, this troops us into greater disunion and fragmentation since its beginning point is 'work' on one side and 'life' on the other. However, whilst solutions to achieving harmony are offered straight through greater time administration and goal-setting strategies, these are red herrings in the work/life balance debate.
Greater fulfilment in our lives begins with us getting in touch with what is unquestionably important to us and then assessing the activities we do in line with our core values and beliefs. By swapping the view of 'work/life balance' for work/life integration we begin to see our one life, comprising the many activities, roles and relationships we have rather than separate lives i.e. Work life, public life, family life. This basic shift in perspective puts us at the centre of our lives with a more qualitative criteria of pleasure than time split between the disparate compartments of our lives.
How Do You talk the query 'What Do You Do?'Recommend : rockwellrk 9000 jawhorse
No comments:
Post a Comment