The Soul of Work
One of the fundamental problems with our experience of work today is that we do not have sufficient complexity in the way we imagine this central human activity. Too often, when we ask questions of our work, they touch on issues of security, stability, and predictability, but not at all on our sense of destiny or the meaning of our lives. We feel work as burden that we carry and not as a potential source of joy and satisfaction.
As a culture, we have come to view work solely through the lens of practical and economic considerations. The concept of work has become identified with the job that we do in order to make money. From the Jungian standpoint, this is a foreshortening of the imagination of work, and it is nothing other than a loss of soul.
Now, it cannot be denied that the economic view is an essential aspect of work. There are practical necessities in life that simply cannot be ignored. But it is also important for us to remember that work is not just a physical or an economic issue. It is also a psychological and spiritual issue. To forget the spirit and the soul is to damage the spirit and the soul. According to the economist E.F. Schumacher, this is exactly the state of work in the modern world:
“The modern world takes a lot of care that the worker’s body should not accidentally or otherwise be damaged. If it is damaged, the worker may claim compensation. But his soul and his spirit? If his work damages him, by reducing him to a robot—that is just too bad.”
A Sense of Destiny
In his book, The Soul's Code, Jungian analyst James Hillman suggests that part of the problem lies with theories of human growth and development that place too great an emphasis on normalizing statistical models, such that our uniqueness and our complexities as individuals can only be judged negatively. But normative models can never accurately describe the individual, who by definition is not a statistical average and is therefore a deviation from the norm.
The “deviation” which we naturally are, and which constitutes the center of our deepest calling, tends to be pathologized and interpreted as “deviant.” Yet it is our uniqueness, Hillman teaches, that nourishes our sense of destiny:
“That is what is lost in so many lives, and what must be recovered: a sense of personal calling, that there is a reason that I am alive.”
Hillman proposes reimagining our lives through what he calls the “acorn theory.” Just as an acorn holds within it the pattern of the oak which it is and which it will become, so we, too, contain within us an “innate image” that bears the pattern of our character and our fate, and which we experience as our unique calling.
“Each person bears a uniqueness that asks to be lived and that is already present before it can be lived.”
Listening to the Daimon
Hillman’s acorn theory is based on the myth of Er, found at the conclusion of Plato’s Republic. This myth relates that each soul is given a unique daimon before birth that bears the pattern that it will live out while on earth. Throughout our life we are guided by the daimon who remembers what we forget in the process of being born—our true calling.
Hillman explains:
“The daimon remembers what is in your image and belongs to your pattern, and therefore your daimon is the carrier of your destiny.”
Hillman’s acorn theory is a way of imagining life and experiencing a sense of destiny. He is not asking us to believe in a literal interpretation of the myth of Er. The “memory” of our daimon is simply the everyday experience that we are drawn to some things and not to others, that some activities feel meaningful and others don’t. What is necessary is that we have a story, a way of imagining life, that is enlivening and inspiring and that confers dignity on our experience of life and work.
Jungian career counseling is a process of learning to listen to the daimon. It is about deepening and enriching the way that we imagine work, so that we can move from unhealthy forms of work – work as escapism, "workaholism," etc. – to healthy expressions of work, which are those forms that further our continued personal growth and contribute to the experience of a meaningful life.
Listening to the Daimon
But isn’t the talk of such things as a calling, a daimon, or a sense of destiny something that is foolish at best, if not downright irresponsible? Thomas Moore, in his book, A Life at Work, notes that the idea that a person has a destiny is generally considered by “those who look at life more soberly” as unwarranted and naïve.
But what if sobriety is not the right attitude to bring to our understanding of work? When we lack a sense of destiny in our life and work, says Moore, we are left with a vacuum in our lives that can only be filled with “existential anxiety.” This means that the kind of imagination that we bring to our work is of the utmost importance to the quality of our lives and the health of our soul. Moore sums up this idea very well:
"A calling is a sensation or intuition that life wants something from you. It can give meaning to the smallest acts and help create a strong identity. If you have a reason for being, you don’t feel entirely aimless. You know who you are and what to do. In a culture where existential anxiety—the worry that nothing is of value and nothing makes sense—is still the order of the day, these are valuable realizations."
The experience of work touches on the deepest psychological and spiritual depths of our humanity. Any conception of work, therefore, that does not recognize these depths is bound to be sterile and ultimately dehumanizing. When we consider recent studies that show that a staggering 87% of people worldwide are “not engaged” or “actively disengaged” from their work, we can begin to understand how crucial it is for us to reimagine the meaning of our work.
Work conceived as a vocation, as a calling, connects it to the life-long process of individuation. Viewed in this way, work becomes one of the means by which we become what we are meant to be. Work as vocation enriches us, deepens us, and aligns us with our destiny.
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This is the start of the story. What is missing is the sense of being in tune with the universe- flow – that goes with working within one’s calling. There’s a joy to it.
Val: Without question, there is so much more to be said on the subject. Thank you for helping to fill out the story.
Jason