Tag: Fulfillment

Giving meaning to work [Article]

Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote “If one wanted to crush and destroy a man entirely, to mete out to him the most terrible punishment … all one would have to do would be to make him do work that was completely and utterly devoid of usefulness and meaning.”  Maria Popova shares the wisdom on How to find fulfilling work by the philosopher Roman Krznaric (a prize if you can pronounce that on the first try!)

…The message of the ‘grin and bear it’ school of thought is that we need to accept the inevitable and put up with whatever job we can get, as long as it meets our financial needs and leaves us enough time to pursue our ‘real life’ outside office hours. The best way to protect ourselves from all the optimistic pundits pedaling fulfillment is to develop a hardy philosophy of acceptance, even resignation, and not set our hearts on finding a meaningful career. I am more hopeful than this, and subscribe to a different approach, which is that it is possible to find work that is life-enhancing, that broadens our horizons and makes us feel more human.

How to avoid work [Article]

Advice from the 1950’s from a career counselor, William J Reilly rings true to this day. As he says in his book, How to Avoid Work, “life really begins when you have discovered that you can do anything you want.” This echoes what Thomas Edison said when asked about his secret to success. ” You do something all day long, don’t you? Everyone does. If you get up at seven o’clock and go to bed at eleven, you have put sixteen good hours, and it is certain that you have been doing something all that time. The only difference is that you do a great many things and I do one. If you took the time in question and applied it in one direction, you would succeed. Success is sure to follows such application. The trouble lies in the fact that people do not have one thing to stick to, letting all else go.”