Whether we want to or not, most of us need to work to make a living.
But a job can be more than just a paycheck and a way to pay the bills. The best jobs make life more meaningful, more valuable, more fun.
David Brooks, the New York Times columnist, and Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute, offered advice at the Aspen Ideas Festival, on how to turn a job into a vocation.
Attach work to ideals. David Brooks said he finds column-writing “perpetually unsatisfying because you always have to think of the next thing.” But the work becomes more satisfying when he thinks about the daily grind as a means of pursuing loftier ideals. For him, that means modeling respectful political dialogue, and pushing the political conversation in a moral and spiritual direction.
Recognize meaningful moments. “The meaning of jobs comes from moments,” David Brooks said. For his columns, he puts together about 200 pages of research and then lays them all out on the floor to be organized into small piles that become paragraphs. “The process of crawling around on my carpet organizing my piles are the best moments of my job. It’s like a form of prayer almost.”
Serve others. Arthur Brooks wanted to become a professional French horn player when he was young, and then he saw this quote from Johann Sebastian Bach on why he’d become a composer: “The aim and final end of all music is nothing less than the glorification of God and the enjoyment of man.” Brooks gradually decided that he could better serve such aims as an economist, with a focus on improving the lives of the poor, than as a musician.
Ask why you do what you do. We all want money, fame, and power, and the temporary pleasure that those benefits bring, but what are the underlying reason for those? To solve problems, share wealth, promote worthy causes?
Follow fear. David Brooks recommended asking what you would do if you weren’t afraid. “I find fear is a super-good GPS director of where you want to go even if there are social obstacles in the way,” he said. You should also ask what types of pain you’re willing to endure, he added: “Every profession involves a certain sort of pain.”
Don’t invest everything in work. The happiest people according to all the best studies have a balanced portfolio of Faith, family, community, and work. “If you have only one thing, you have an unbalanced portfolio,” Arthur Brooks added. “It’s as if your whole life is in Greek bonds. … Don’t take the risk.”
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