[This series of posts on “the problem of work” supports a new program called the Existential Wellness Coach Certificate Program that launches February, 2024. Part of the program are 12 FREE webinars that you can attend in March, April and May of 2024. To learn more about the program, please visit here. For an early bird special price on the program, please visit here. To learn more about the webinars and to register, please visit here.]

Consider Harry, who finds his corporate job both taxing and meaningless. When a person says, “My job is meaningless,” we don’t imagine that spending a month on an ashram will do much to change his experience of work when he returns to it. Won’t it still be meaningless when he returns?

That month away may help him see that he ought to quit his job. It may help him talk himself into feeling more positive about his job. It may have some other useful consequences. But work will again begin to eat him alive the moment he returns to it.

The long and the short of it is that Harry hates his job. It strikes him that he’s obliged to do something about that, something he’s characterizing to himself as “something radical.” But what exactly? With the help of his newly-hired existential wellness coach, he decides to do all of the following.

First, he creates his list of life purposes. He finds this task grueling but, as luck would have it, an item on the list sparks his interest. His diabetic sister living in South America has always had trouble procuring her insulin. This gets him thinking.

Next, he mulls over the matter of individuality. He considers his need for it, the challenges associated with it, and who he might want to be from now on in. He hears himself say, “I need to be the individual that I really am.” This gets him thinking.

Next, he takes to heart the idea of absurd rebellion. Harry is aware that he has been a “go along to get along” kind of person. The idea of rebellion ties his stomach in knots. But he finds himself nodding to himself: is it time to take some necessary risks?

He thinks about the phrase “from personality to personhood.” In considering it, he senses how his formed personality has aimed him at safe, reliable work that he detests. Can he now make use of his remaining freedom to achieve personhood?

He begins to take to heart the demand that what he does be moral, worthy, and aligned with the multiple meanings of the phrase “Do the next right thing.” His current job is morally neutral at best. His decides that his next work really must be higher-minded.

He enters the “room that is his mind” and takes notice of his indwelling style. He makes a mental note of some needed improvements, like adding windows and installing a safety valve to reduce the constant pressure he feels.

He comes to realize that he has not been authoring his own life. Maybe he’s been doing a decent job of accepting his lot. But a life of headaches and stomachaches from attending boring meetings about sales projections really must stop.

First, he makes a decision. He will start his own business. He does some research and discovers that no one is devoted to providing low-cost insulin internationally. Of course, this may prove fantastically hard to do. But he embraces the challenge.

He starts his day earlier, and with a new orientation. His orientation is no longer toward his miserable work day. Now when he wakes up, he spends a full hour on his new business. Sometimes he spends two hours, even if that makes him late.

Building his business is even harder than he imagined it would be. And, so far, it feels less meaningful than he had hoped it would feel. But he knows to align his thoughts with his intentions and to repeat to himself, “I’m building my business.”

He attends to the needs of his budding business for that hour with as little drama as possible. He doesn’t always love that hour but he knows that it is the exact right thing for him to be doing from five a.m. to six a.m. each day.

At work, he manifests his chosen personality upgrades. He practices calmness and detachment, he reminds himself not to evaluate life negatively just because he is obliged to work, and he regulates his energy, avoiding gearing up into speediness.

At lunch, which he now takes every day instead of skipping, he invests meaning in “just being” and goes for a walk to a certain park a quarter mile from his office. There he eats his sandwich. He uses this time to breathe and to relax and he doesn’t rush back.

In the afternoon, he gets his salaried work done and at the same time he makes use of his breaks to do some work on the insulin business, sending out an email, writing some website copy, or learning how nonprofits similar to his have designed themselves.

When he leaves work, he really leaves it behind him. Rather than joining his colleagues and stopping for a few-too-many drinks, he leisurely strolls to a bus stop a full mile away, enjoying the afternoon bustle, the city sights, and the light of dusk.

When he gets home, he takes a shower and then makes a mindful choice as to whether he will relax by watching a few episodes of the television show he is currently following or whether he will invest an hour in his insulin business.

Was that a splendid day or a perfect day? Perhaps not. But it was certainly an intentional day and a better day than those days that he’d been experiencing before deciding to organize his life around his life purposes. And it was a day that made him feel proud.

Harry’s saga underscores why so many people today find themselves becoming solo entrepreneurs. By creating their own work, they better meet their self-obligations and more fully engage in self-authorship. There are existential reasons why so many people today are attempting some version of the one-person business and exploring possibilities that never existed before the advent of the Internet.

Do you have a new work story to write?

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This Post is republished on Medium.

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