Peace at Work: Applying Zen in Your Career

Written by Jason Shields

Why is it that the first question we tend to ask people we first meet is: “What do you do for a living?” We tend to define ourselves by what we do and what are various positions are. In the next four weeks, I will be writing a series of articles on Spirituality and the Workplace. What can adopting a more spiritual, Zen-like attitude toward work do for you? It can show you how to make the most of your skills, how to achieve the deepest level of satisfaction from your work life, and most importantly, how to place your chosen employment in perspective. We will also discuss in the coming weeks how to deal with coworkers and bosses who seem to give us trouble all of the time.

Some of us have jobs and careers that are fulfilling and rewarding while others of us have jobs that we detest going to everyday. The minute the Monday workday begins, we are dreaming of the following Friday and start of the weekend. Whether you intended to end up in your current job or not, or if you are unemployed at the moment, the fact is that you are there. No matter how much you tend to immerse yourself in your work/career, defining yourself by your job or lack of one is placing yourself in a tight box. You are setting up self-defeating, preconceived notions about yourself: your personality, values, financial and social status and how “educated” you are. When we hear that so and so is a doctor or a lawyer, we immediately see dollar signs and assume that he or she is smarter than the average individual worker. What about a preschool teacher? Or a factory worker? Or a janitor?

Try as you may, it is hard not to make assumptions about yourself and others based on occupation. Our culture pressures us to believe certain things about work and various occupations. A simple way to thwart your compunction to make assumptions is to recognize them in the first place and then analyze them. A valuable exercise is to write down on a piece of paper your own assumptions about the following occupations:

Doctor

Lawyer

Teacher

Bartender

Minister

Unemployed Person

Scientist

Car Salesman

Of course, if your occupation is not mentioned above, add it to the list along with your assumptions of how it describes yourself. Now ask “where do these preconceptions come from?” Are they stereotypes that you learned from your parents or television or society? Closely analyze what each of your assumptions about the chosen occupations listed above says about you. Invite them in to your thinking and face all of it: the good, the bad and the ugly. Would you be more willing to strike up a conversation with the CEO of a corporation than with a factory worker? Are you more dismissive to a waiter or waitress than you are to a boss or a famous actor? Try hard to think about the ways in which your assumptions could limit your relationships with other people and how these assumptions can limit your perception of life in general.

Do you judge people according to their careers? The majority of us do to some extent. The next time you meet a new person, try not to ask what they do for a living. Remain unbiased and find out other things about the person first if you can: hobbies, family, etc. Chances are they will probably be shocked that you did not ask them about their profession. Nonetheless, the important point of this week's article is “Getting Out of the Box” that you place yourself and others in regarding certain occupations. In order for you to experience peace and satisfaction in your chosen profession or in any other job that you may have had to settle with for the time being, it is vital that you get out of that boxed mindset.

Your assumptions are causing you to miss special opportunities for you to connect deeper with your fellow human beings. We are all individuals, unique and beautiful. The minute you place a person in a box labeled “Defined by Career” he or she becomes nothing but a clone, dull and lifeless. Why disregard or revere a person because of their “position”? Furthermore, why disregard or revere yourself because of your occupation?

It is important for you to look at your own assumptions about your occupation. Don't fence yourself in to a place where you cannot escape. You do have an advantage when it comes to yourself. You know yourself much better than the person you just met so how can you create stereotypes about yourself? Actually, you do all of the time. I know this sounds silly but we all do it! Have you ever heard yourself or another say, “I'm only a factory worker or I'm only a bartender?” Have you heard someone piously say “I'm the nation's best chemist!” One profession may make more money than another but that does not have anything to do with the internal worth of each individual.

A profession may reflect the inner person of an individual, and the way he or she does his or her job may reflect the inner being of an individual, but the profession does not CREATE the inner person. It is totally the other way around: the inner person or being manifests itself through the occupation.

So, what are you assuming about yourself in regards to your occupation? What positive things do you assume about yourself in regards to your job? What negative qualities do you attribute to yourself in regards to your current occupation? Examine your answers very carefully and match them up with how they coincide with your own vision of yourself apart from your job. You are not your job! You are not your financial status! You are you!

I am not going to argue the fact that what we do for a living does have an impact on our lives. Whether we accept it or not, our jobs have a tremendous impact on our personal lives. The most important step in taking a spiritual, Zen-like approach to your work life is being able to see beyond the job, beyond the label, and beyond the preconceptions that you place on people to whom you ask the question, “What do you do?” Remember, you are just you, who happens to have this or that occupation. Maybe you are exceptionally devoted to your profession. But it is because of who you are and not what the job is. Stop putting yourself and others in a box of labels and stop thinking that you are your job!

“Having a job does not make you anything but employed” ~ Eve Adamson

Next week, we'll explore getting into “the zone” and boosting your work efficiency, whether they are hectic or boring jobs, through simple meditative techniques.

Namaste!