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Converting
death jobs into living work
by Margot Cairnes
Is your work big enough for your soul?
This is the challenging question posed
by Matthew Fox in his revolutionary book The Reinvention
of Work. Most jobs, Fox tells us, are death work, the
performance of which actually stunts the human spirit.
Because industrial society is designed around the
concept of a machine, most jobs are focused on the needs
of the machine (system) and most people work as cogs in
the wheel. This has led to rape of the natural
environment (of which holes in the ozone layer, shocking
air and water pollution and deforestation are just a few
symptoms) and neglect of endemic social problems such as
poverty, family abuse and discrimination. The end result
is that some people get financially richer and we all
end up more spiritually and emotionally poorer while
passing on to our children and grandchildren a seriously
ailing planet. All this assaults our souls and leaves us
feeling alienated and tired. As a result we are driven
to increasingly addicted behaviors, relationships and
societies.
Fox is not alone in his warnings.
There is currently a flood of books on work coming out
addressing this same issue. Books such as Calm at Work,
Success with Soul and Charles Handy's The Hungry Spirit
all address the effects of Fox's death work.
Fox, however, provides a much more
radical (and dauntingly challenging) answer, the
implications of which could reform our society beyond
current recognition. Fox suggests that we convert our
death jobs into living work. This involves several
steps.
STEP 1. Realise that we are all
connected and that if we hurt our environment or each
other, we hurt ourselves. Conversely, by not looking
after ourselves we are damaging the whole of which we
are part. While this philosophy fits into the great
mystical traditions it is also in line with the findings
of modern scientists, especially those working in the
areas of systems theory. This theory states that
everything is connected to everything else. Chaos theory
tells us that even slight changes in one part of the
system can lead to massive changes elsewhere. We need to
develop a way of seeing things that takes this
interconnection into account and use this truth as a
basis for our code of conduct.
STEP 2. We all need to do our inner
work. This means raising our spiritual and emotional
awareness and working on our emotional sore spots and
Achilles' heels. This will make us safer people to be
around and help us see things more clearly. Lack of
awareness and emotional immaturity blur our vision and
have up project our own limitations, fears and failings
onto the world we see.
STEP 3. Link our work with our own
needs, the needs of our families, the needs of our
society and the needs of our planet. Fox calls this our
outer work. This involves building relationships and
choosing to engage in collective action.
In short, by lifting our own personal
game and choosing to make a difference we can improve
the quality of our own lives and make a positive
contribution to society and our planet. This will lift
our spirits and help us regain hope for our future as we
work to improve the legacy of the earth and society we
leave to our children's children. This is work that
stretches our souls. This is living work.
Copyright
ã Margot
Cairnes
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