When work works
About 10 years ago, work sucked. I felt a lot of inner turmoil about my profession and that I did not feel it fit. That turmoil bled into all other areas of my life. Because I did not love what I was doing, nor did I feel I really knew what I was doing or what was expected of me, I felt a huge amount of stress. This showed up in many different ways and impacted all of my relationships. At the time I read a quote, it said “When work works, life works,” or so I saw it. I understand that to mean that if I could get my work life in order, then the rest of my life would fall into place. I could find satisfaction in things I normally enjoyed. I could feel comfortable in my skin. I could take off the mask.
So I dug in. I really thought that I needed to master my current situation to be allowed to move onto the next. That if I did not achieve mastery, that I would feel the same general dissatisfaction as I moved into whatever came next. I worked a lot of hours. I tried really hard to understand what the expectations were from my manager. I delivered results. Finally I found another opportunity. I was recruited by another company nearby to do similar work in Continuous Improvement. The commute was short. There was a lunch running club and many things to LOVE about the job. But again, I found myself on an island at work. Unclear expectations, long tedious days and no satisfaction.
Within a few months of leaving, I got a phone call from the president of my original employer to come back, that I would get to report directly to him and be in the first Ops Management cohort at Cal Tech. I jumped on the offer. I returned to longer days (and the longer commute again). The work was much more gratifying, but I still was not balancing life. Now my hobbies went by the wayside. I had gained weight and was spiraling. I was still on such a mission to find mastery at work to make my life work gain.
Fast forward to today - August 3rd, 2023. I tried googgling this quote to find the source. All I can find is “when life works, work works.” I had read, interpreted and internalized it all BACKWARDS 10 years ago. At that time, work was all that I could hear and see and think about. What I did for work was how I defined who I am. It was my self worth. My trajectory has been slower in comparison to my peers, brother and even to my parents by this age in their careers. I learned the hard way that to give what I do to earn a living so much power causes nothing but powerlessness. It serves no one to compare career status. But people who have satisfaction in their lives outside of work, have the capacity to feel good inside their skin at work.
And so I challenge anyone who’s feeling buried at work, irritable at home, or sad at their career trajectory to find what brings joy outside of work. Work on life and then work will fall into place.