If It's All Going to Burn, Why Work?

"A sense of divine mission must be restored to man's daily work."
-- C.S. Lewis

You cannot have a purposeful life without a purposeful work life.

The reason is simple. What's the point of life if such a major area of it seems pointless? We spend most of our waking hours working, yet the purpose of what we actually do Monday to Friday eludes us. Are we fooling ourselves that we are living "on mission" when - if we were honest - we would have to admit that our career can sometimes feel so meaningless?

It does not matter whether our work is at home, on the road, on the factory line, or in the front office. For all of us, work is in some degree a tradeoff and eventually we begin to doubt if we have made a bad bargain. The questions are unavoidable: What is the point of my job? Does what I do count for something? Is it worth all the trouble? Does it really matter? What difference will it really make in the end? Why am I doing what I am doing?

The "Why?" Question

The "Why?" question is no respecter of persons. At one time or other, everyone of us asks it. Tragically, for most of us it is a question without a satisfying answer.

The thirties-something professional wonders if all the sacrifice that their career demands is worth the cost. They have finally seen their dream succeed, but now find that they do not have time to enjoy the toys that that they worked so hard to afford. What do you do when your original purpose doesn't have the appeal it did at first?

The mom staying home to raise her kids hits the end of the day, tired and worn down. She believes in the value of shaping her children's young lives, but the mundane routine of a homemaker often leaves her feeling unchallenged at the end of the day. She privately wonders if she would be personally more fulfilled using more of her skills in a career of her own. For her, fulfilling one purpose seems to shortchange another.

The subordinate worked all weekend to have the report ready to present to the senior vice president. They canceled commitments to family and friends just to pull it off. After staying up all night to get it done by Monday morning, they show up only to find out that plans have changed. This was not the first time that they had watched hours of work just get thrown into the trash can. Physically and emotionally spent, a rising sense of futility comes flooding in. What purpose can my job serve when so much of it seems in vain?

The middle-aged guy has reached the top of the latter but in the process his marriage is falling apart. Having gotten in late after another long day, his wife is already in bed. He feels a stranger in his own home. When a quick surf of TV fails to turn up anything to fill his emptiness, he stares out the den window at the darkness and questions the point of it all. For so long he worked to get ahead. He got there, but it is nothing like what he thought it would be. Now he doesn't know what he's working for.

To the single parent working long hours, the treadmill of just trying to make ends meet seems without end. The hardest part is they wonder if they are missing their kids' lives in the process. It seems like a catch-22. Is there some rhyme or reason to the unending rat race?

The engineer who was laid off by their blue chip employer after years of loyal service struggles with depression and disillusionment. He gave his prime, but for what? He can't help thinking, "All those years of long hours and stress, and this is what I get?" Facing his sixth month of unemployment, he feels useless. His purpose in life collapsed when his career was pulled out from under him.

The hourly employee sweated through decades of work at the plant, sacrificing health just to get by. In the twilight years just when they had hoped to retire, they find they have to keep working or face the bleak prospects of no health insurance and an inadequate pension. What's the point of all my sweat when the working world seems unfair?

Gut check

Questioning of the point of our jobs is a gut check none of us can avoid. This bottom line cannot be papered over. It will not accept a cliché for an answer. We can try to ignore it. We can feed it temporary fixes. We can bribe ourselves with our paycheck. We can even be distracted momentarily from the purpose problem by the illusory hope of greener pastures. Yet, under the surface it remains unresolved and keeps bubbling back up within us.

The why question is the great equalizer. It inevitably stops all of us in our tracks. It's not a issue of success. The well-heeled executive without a life feels just as shafted as the laid off worker. Out of nowhere it pops into our mind in the middle of the day.: "Why in the world am I doing this?" We wake up in the middle of the night and can't shake the doubts about the direction of our career. It's that low-grade angst slowly churning in our stomach: "Is my life a big mistake?"

One of the writers of the Bible put into words this feeling of the seeming futility of our labor, which all of us eventually experience. He wrote, "I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and striving after the wind." Life on the job often feels that way, doesn't it? That's the cutthroat world that we all get up to face each day.

Some of us keep getting stuck there. We know there has got to be more, but we can't seem to find it. Asking the question is half the battle. This series has the audacity to ask the "Why?" question. I dare you to confront it with me. This is a six-week journey searching to see if our worklife has a soul. This book explores if there is some greater purpose to our work that we somehow missed along the way. Each chapter is a daily guide with a short thought-provoking reading and a few minutes of intentional self-reflection about the purpose of your work that day. What do you have to loose? Make a commitment to yourself to investment just a few minutes for each of the six weeks for the sake of a lifetime of purpose. You won't regret it.

Do you remember the first Macintosh computer, the 128k? It was a little grey box with a slot in it. Its use of graphic icons revolutionized the way we interface with computers. When you click on an icon on your Windows desk, it is because of that Macintosh 128k computer. When Steve Jobs, Apple's founder, made the 128k, he had the signatures of all the design team engraved on the inside of the plastic casing. They had built the 128k for a purpose. They had poured their time, their ideas, their creativity into it. Its innovative design was an expression of themselves and Jobs wanted them to have credit.

I challenge you to take the next forty days and look inside yourself and see if you don't see the telltale signature of a designer whose innovation you are. See if you don't sense an amazing design to work, create, build, communicate, teach, manage, fix, or sell, or whatever it is that you do. Your work was made on purpose, for a purpose. The Apple computer did not work by accident and neither do you.