When we think of ourselves primarily as consumers, we perilously narrow our understanding of what work is for.For the consumer, work is primarily about getting more. Work generates income, which generates buying power, which generates the mark of success for the consumer - being able to have what you want.And since there's always more to want, being in work to fulfil the narrative of the consumer can never, truly, fulfill. We become wide-open gaping mouths, always wanting, never satisfied.And, in this way, we rob work of so many other life-giving possibilities:
- that it might connect us deeply with people and give us a place to belong
- that it might be a way in which our particular gifts and talents can be marshalled for the benefit of others
- that it could be a deep source of meaningful engagement with life
If we want work to open bigger possibilities for ourselves, our organisations, and our society, it's time for us to give this a lot more serious thought and attention than we're currently used to.
Photo Credit: Bugsy Sailor via Compfight cc
Stand for a while, in a field, on the banks of a slow-moving river, beside the silent pulse of a huge tree. Allow yourself to feel, for a moment, the life that is all around you.Worms and insects are working their magic in the soft soil beneath your feet. Birds, making their way home as dusk falls. Everything alive, breathing, just as you are.The swifts crossing the horizon share their biology with you: DNA, cells, blood, hearts, eyes, brain. That dry stone wall, a common inheritance: molecules, atoms. Sustaining it all, the sun, even now dropping below the horizon.No matter how busy you are, how important, how much you enchant yourself with demands and expectations. Even if you spend your days under the hum of electric lights, your nights hidden away in the darkness. No matter how weary, world-worn, distracted, lost. Nothing you're seeing is as separate from you as you've come to believe.
We spend most of the first part of our lives in approval training.For good reason, the people around us - perhaps especially those who care for us most - do their best to ensure we fit in to the particular family or culture into which we're born. It can be an act of love to do this, because without the capacity to get along with others in socially acceptable ways we'd quickly find ourselves friendless, and perhaps unable to support ourselves in the world.But the consequence of this necessary kind of care is that we quickly find ourselves in a kind of approval school. Some parts of us are welcomed, applauded and cherished by others. Other parts of us are not seen, unappreciated, or actively and forcibly denied to us. We learn that seeking approval of one kind or another from other people is one of life's central tasks if we are to survive and thrive.And then we take our approval training into adulthood, long after it's stopped supporting us.How much we hold back from the world because of it. How much art, creativity, insight and mischief is denied because of our ongoing attempts to look good in the eyes of others.And then how much we build our organisations and institutions to perpetuate, reward and encourage approval rather than the genuine, brave, unsettling, surprising, life-giving contribution all human beings are capable of making to one another when we give up faking.
Three basic human needs, none of which can be met by accumulating more stuff, more status, or more prestige:
I've been 
What do you do with your body - probably habitually - to prevent yourself from feeling what you don't want to feel?Perhaps you hold your breath (very common), clench your jaw, tighten your belly, slump, slouch, tilt your head back, or knot your arms across your chest.Or maybe you use habitual movements, ticks or gestures as a way of avoiding feeling something you'd rather not.In each case it's a way of tuning out of connection with yourself, with others, and with what's actually happening. It's a way of moving away from here in order to feel safe.I'm learning to see how I do this with my face - a half-smile and scrunching of my eyes and the upper part of my cheeks. It's rigid and tense, and does its numbing job quite well.I think the smiling - which of course I can't see - is how I say to other people "I'm ok, so please don't bother me". And the move as a whole is a way of protecting myself from the emotion I most automatically try to avoid: shame.In every case, when I catch myself doing this, I also find out that It doesn't feel at all alive. It's frozen. Dead.Being alive requires feeling all of it, whatever may come. And relaxing the tight scrunch so I can be fully in the world again.If you watch yourself for a while, can you tell how you might be using your body to hold yourself away from experiencing life?
