Purpose, Meaning and Being

Our careers, and indeed our lives, need meaning. And often this is achieved by identifying a purpose. I remember reading in Marcus Buckingham’s book Go Put Your Strengths to Work, he noted that a strength was not only dependent upon what we were good at, but who we were doing it for. Inextricably, our need for meaning is interdependent on purpose, value and connection. It is no wonder that we often question our purpose when we feel we are working with or for the ‘wrong’ people, in the ‘wrong’ organization or industry or in the ‘wrong’ community, etc.?

A friend of mine recently passed away from cancer. I’d known him for over 40 years.?I was the godfather of his only daughter. I’d been there for him during some of his toughest challenges and we’d enjoyed each other’s company in simple conversation, common interests, and our love of cars and technology. I really miss him. But near the end of his life, he was quite bitter, embroiled in the difficulty of working for the ‘wrong’ people. People, he felt, didn’t acknowledge his contributions, took him for granted and didn’t appreciate his work or his team’s accomplishments. We chatted about his plans to retire. And he was counting the days until he did. And then a few months after retiring, he passed away from cancer. He had spent the last 3 or 4 years simply waiting to leave a place that no longer engendered joy, but was only tolerable.?

Of course, he had a greater purpose and a reason for staying on as long as he did. He wanted to support his daughter. He wanted to complete his career and retire honourably. And he wanted to be free of the need to ‘work’ after retirement by having enough to retire on. Everything converged on his 65th birthday. In the end, though, he was really uncertain of what he would do for himself once he did retire. His sister joked that he’d need to become a human ‘being’ again instead of a human ‘doing’. And he shared with me that this was something that he wanted to address — after he retired. Then he would have the time to reflect and consider.?

We could discuss how the interruptions of work, endless work days, micromanaging managers and the culture of achieving tasks are all responsible for this confluence of negative impacts. I’m sure many of us feel we have the same story or could tell the same story. Alas, there is little we can do for those who are totally entangled. It is like a whale caught in a net sinking in the ocean and taking its last gasps. We need take note of these stories and reflect if we are in the same boat. If so, we can’t wait until retirement to make some adjustments.?

It is not only those in the sunset of their careers who are facing these challenges. The epidemic of depression and suicides in young people today is astounding. Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in those between 12-19 according to the CDC.?What a frightening statistic. When we realize that so much of our day is reliant to the constant feeding of our brains on the dopamine, endorphin?and serotonin loop, we have given new meaning to the rat race. Even our devices are demanding our attention: notification badges, dings, vibrations and haptic responses are part of the inputs we are nearly constantly expecting. We are now defining holidays as the ability to simply turn off our devices! I was shocked when watching the documentary, The Social Dilemma, that social media platforms exploit our neurophysiology to create these Pavlovian responses to our devices and messages.

When our organization sends out emails or texts informing us of events or tasks, we respond as we must in our contractual relationship. We read them and adhere to them. We conform, ever so slightly and repeatedly, to this new measure of activation and engagement. We are being cultured, over and over again, to respond to the tasks that we need to perform and the events we need to attend.

It’s time to hit the reset button.?

It is not possible to escape this structure or culture. It is nearly global in its pervasiveness. However, we do need to take a break and opt out for a while. For some of us that may mean scheduling time to review our ‘inboxes’. And ensuring that we don’t make it an anytime, anywhere response. It may mean putting our devices away during meetings, classes, meals, etc. It may mean informing your teammates, bosses, etc that you are not available in off-hours.?

For young people, especially when new neural pathways are being formed on a daily basis, we must ensure that their delicate brain structure is not constructed to only respond to device feedback. It will become harder and harder to undo.

It is easy to get sucked into responding and performing the tasks. This enlivens the ‘task positive network’ of the brain which is directly wired into the reward centres of the brain. When we solve a problem or complete a task, we get that neural-hormonal or neurotransmitter hit. But this is not our default mode. The default mode of the brain is open, social and less time and task bound. It is spacious, visionary and imaginative. It is the aspect that connects us with others and with Nature itself. We need times in our day to do this. It might mean meditating, going for a walk, being with your pet or out in nature. Whatever it is, we need to do it regularly to reconnect to our ‘being’. We are not human ‘doings’ although in many ways our culture is moving us in that direction. We are human ‘beings’ who have a vast and glorious potential filled with meaning and purpose. But like all things, we need to give it time on a daily basis so we can culture it for the long term.?

My friend lived a good life. He was a good man. Much of what he accomplished was reflected in the comments on his passing. He helped his team mates, mentored young people, profoundly loved his daughter and cared deeply about his spiritual life. I miss him.?But the lesson learned is that every day is precious and every day we must reconnect with who we are, not evaluate ourselves on what we do. It is in our daily renewal, in our being, we will find our purpose and meaning.?

In the next article we will delve more deeply into how our 'being' can transform our environment, ourselves and renew our evolution into an ever-increasing path of expanding our joy, purpose and meaning, not only in our careers, but in our lives.

References:

Buckingham, M (2007) Go Put Your Strengths to Work, New York, Free Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster Inc.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2020) ‘Underlying Cause of Death, 1999-2019 Results’, CDC WONDER, [Online] https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/datarequest/D76;jsessionid=0E4E7D4E0F5AC4AED6BDD7D2E5C5

The Social Dilemma (2021) [Online].https://www.thesocialdilemma.com