The Longing of Your Unlived Life
What does the idea of rest bring to mind for you?
If I were to give you an hour or a day with the instructions to do nothing, what feelings or physical sensations might come up?
Would you feel anxious, heart pounding with nervous energy? Would you jump immediately into a mental tilt-a-whirl of worry thinking about all the tasks on your to-do list that would be left unfinished?
Would you feel guilty? Would you feel selfish?
One of the most popular policies at my last company was a month-long sabbatical that employees became eligible to take after 5 years of employment. It was (and still is) quite a progressive policy, one that very few other companies offer.
Naturally, everyone I worked with looked forward to hitting their 5-year mark. And how cool was it to work for a company that offered such a privilege? I remember feeling grateful and humbled to be part of such a culture, counting my lucky stars that I’d been selected to work there.
Relative to local and national policies, as well as what other companies currently offer, a paid sabbatical really was quite remarkable.
And yet, the implicit message here is this: we value five years of your working life with one month’s paid time off. That’s 60 months of grind in exchange for 1 on a beach.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Our culture is one of deep imbalance. We swim in material excess, yet we are unfulfilled, lonely, and increasingly isolated from each other. We have learned how to make ends meet, and yet we are drained of energy, with never enough time.
We are deeply impoverished for all that money can’t buy.
At the heart of our collective sickness is that we learned somewhere along the way to outsource the valuation of our time and effort to some external power, most often to the companies for which we work — and more broadly to an economic system that impersonally ranks our unique talents, skills, and efforts according to supply and demand.
When we learn to value ourselves from the outside in — from our titles or paychecks or status — our foundation will always be shaky. From this perspective, we are always at the mercy of external shocks to the system.
To be clear, I’m not here to argue against capitalism. This is the system we’ve inherited, and the system within which we must continue to operate, so long as it remains our shared social contract.
What I am interested in, however, is how capitalism lives within us. How is it that the beliefs of our families, our cultures, and our society have become unconsciously embedded within us, manifesting in our very beliefs, thoughts, words, and actions?
How is it that in the grand buffet of life, many of us have settled for mere table scraps?
When did compromise become our default?
I have a ferocious work ethic. No one has ever doubted that when I say I’ll do something that it will indeed be done — and often ahead of schedule.
I attribute this work ethic to my parents, to their parents, and to the generations of my ancestral lineage descended directly from the Protestants who fled religious persecution in Europe and settled in the colonies of the Americas.
The Protestants were famous for their work ethic, and it was from their example that America blossomed into a country of ingenuity, innovation, and near-superhuman productivity. In this environment, my work ethic has never been questioned, but rather praised, celebrated and rewarded.
But this famous Protestant work ethic also has a dark side — an external striving rooted in the belief that through our works, we “prove” our worthiness, indeed, the very salvation of our immortal souls.
Fast-forward hundreds of years and many generations later and we see that belief still playing out in the foundation of our modern-day economic policies — the very institutions that form the bedrock of our the Gospel of Work, which leads inevitably to burnout.
Through that collective cultural evolution, and through our own individual coming of age in school systems, our sense of self became deeply intertwined with our work. We trade the one measure of success as children (our grades) for another as adults (our money).
The predominant corporate pay-for-performance models of compensation tie an employee’s income directly to their impact. While this seems like a good idea in theory, in practice, it becomes quite muddy.
It raises questions, such as:
- What is our inherent value as human beings? Are we only as valuable as what we can produce? What happens when we are sick or injured and cannot work?
- Which work is valued and why? Can there be such a thing as objectivity when all decisions are filtered through the very subjective lens of those who happen to hold decision-making power?
- What is our responsibility to the past? How do we account for the impact of historical and environmental inequity in systems of performance management? What happens when those in power lack the historical lens of perspectives outside of their own?
While I believe many companies strive to do well by their employees, no single company can answer these questions in isolation.
And if we as individuals are to reclaim our agency within these systems — to become co-creators of the future instead of perpetrators of the past — we must reckon first with our own relationship to them. As Socrates famously said, the life unexamined is not worth living. So, too, I believe, do our unexamined work lives perpetuate much of our unconscious suffering.
And for those of you out there who believe me to be fighting with windmills, hear me out. In order to address our suffering, we must first admit that we are suffering, which is no small feat for a culture that has normalized repression, denial, and avoidance of what causes us pain.
As it relates to our work lives, to participate in corporate America at any level is to perpetuate suffering in three subtle ways:
- Competition: In companies with performance structures that stack rank employees, and even in those where performance must bend to a bell curve, monetary incentives are a zero-sum game. That is, if my colleague outperforms me, she in theory earns more of the cash pot than I do. This incentivizes what Brene Brown calls “hustling for our worth,” a mindset of proving ourselves, demonstrating impact, and competing with colleagues over mindsets of collaboration that would otherwise promote trust, psychological safety and belonging.
- Dependency: All corporations are hierarchies, no matter how “flat” they claim to be. Hierarchies are systems of inherent inequality that consolidate power and decision-making for the many within the hands of a few. Those at the bottom are subject to policies created by those at the top, while those at the top are under constant scrutiny from would-be rivals from their ranks below. In either position, fear, control, and constriction are the law of the land — the very antithesis of what most organizations need to succeed: autonomy, innovation and expansion.
- Complacency: In structures where we are expected to put in a “normal” schedule of working hours, there is little to no incentive to innovate or improve efficiency. In so many career coaching conversations, I speak with people who are stuck, bored, and underutilized in their cookie-cutter jobs, watching the clock and stretching out tasks so to appear they’re working longer hours relative to their peers. The predominant attitude of “this is just the way things are” creates a sort of learned helplessness that keeps us bound to the hamster wheel of striving, hustling, and trying to prove our worth.
What are we to do, then?
While I think often about this question, I don’t claim to have the answers. The answers lie beyond me or you, and instead in our collective ability to frame the problem and speak about it from a shared understanding and language.
What I do know for sure is that there is no way to think clearly about how best to address our wounds when we are actively bleeding out. This is the state of most of today’s organizations as they navigate appropriate responses to the murder of George Floyd and this country’s deep racial inequity, as well as questions around employee well-being and resiliency in the wake of the global pandemic.
And as much as we have learned to depend on companies to meet our needs, to stop the bleeding requires that we first take care of ourselves.
“Look carefully and see the subtle burden you have placed on those around you to compensate for the longing of your unlived life. To re-own this burden may be the greatest act of kindness and pure love that you can offer this world.” — Matt Licata
I never made it to that 5-year mark for my company’s sabbatical. After resigning, however, I planned a sabbatical all my own. I took not one, but two months to bathe in nature, reconnecting to my own roots and wildness between the jungles of Bali and the expansiveness of New Zealand’s South Island.
Many people criticized me for this choice.
Some insinuated I was weak, that I was running away from the challenges of the “real world.” Others called me irresponsible, up and leaving my life behind with no plan for the future. Parts of those statements may be true; yet what drove me even in the face of their doubt was a single word that I held onto for dear life: rest.
It was a word that came from the depths of my inner knowing, a wisdom that guided me one painstaking step at a time back home to myself.
And when I set off to reclaim those parts of myself I’d lost, I acted not just out of mercy for myself, but equally for everyone who loved me — in particular for those who had front row seats to my years-long decline into the shell of a human I’d become.
In this context, to rest was nothing short of revolutionary. It was a declaration of my own sovereignty, an end to the series of inner compromises that I had made to fit myself into a system that was never made for me.
Far from what our society or capitalism would have us believe, to rest is our birthright as humans. Just as the day turns to night, and night to day again, so, too, do we have our own cycles and rhythms — which we bypass at our own peril.
Where many of us have been taught that it’s somehow noble to tend to everyone else, and to put our own needs last, the truth is that we are no good for anyone when we are spun out, sick, and overwhelmed.
We can only give of ourselves authentically and with integrity when we are whole.
And the issues of today’s world cannot be solved with frazzled, stress-driven, haphazard reactions. What the world is asking of us — demanding of us, even — is to become clear and grounded, anchored so deeply within our center that we cannot be blown off-course.
To take time off is not a privilege to earn, reserved only for the lucky few whose companies provide it. Nor is it an option to sidestep or bypass suffering — our own or another’s.
If you are committed to living from your center, from your core self, I see you, and I commend you. And I share with you a benediction that was bestowed upon me this week: May your gratitude be greater than your fear.
