How "intimate" are you with your job?

First and foremost, I'll like to thank God for having safely brought me to the last day of 2011, It's been a rocky year, but I look back and thank Him for tiding me through. Secondly, I'd like to thank Him for giving me the "eureka" moment by answering this persistent question that has been bugging me quite a while, especially in the past four months... In a previous post on this blog, I had brought up that a common advice friends had given me, when I shared my dejection over work challenges, was to "just treat this as a job".

Frankly speaking, I hated that phrase. In fact, I detested that phrase and was sort of "sneering" behind their backs at what I thought was their lack of commitment and professionalism. Finally upon reading this collection of short stories "Kadokawa Shoten" (loosely translated as "Definitely no tears") by Fumio Yamamoto, I finally realised the truth...

In Yamamoto's short stories, she potrays snippets of ladies in a range of common and uncommon professions, and their mindsets when going about work and their relationships with others (this includes not just colleagues but also family, friends and even lovers) pertaining to their job. In the epilogue, Yamamoto writes that it is "not necessary for everyone to love or even like their job", even though the author herself prefers the mode of being madly in love with her work. She also says that due to the limited time span each of us have in our life, we are unable to experience all the different types of work available, and thus will never understand or empathise how others treat their work.

I'm very grateful for having read these insights and gained a better understanding to that phrase I had reviled so much then. Turns out that that phrase is a "rubber phrase", as people often describe as flexible to personal preference and interpretation. We tend to think of our job as an object, something devoid of emotions, likes and dislikes. Granted the work itself is not a being. However, when we work, we will have to deal with other human beings. It is just that depending on the nature of our job, the types of people we deal with will vary and so will our frequency with them. Thus, I'd like to further build on Yamamoto's insight, and state that how we define our job depends on the level and type of intimacy we'll like to have with those we deal with when working...

This intimacy preference, will then depend solely on the personal makeup of what are the worker's principles and values. Taking myself, I crave honesty, integrity and responsibility, both from self and others. Thus, the vibes I may give off to others may be that of stern, demanding though sincere. For those who value principles and values of kindness and forgiveness, they may come across as less intimidating to others, though I would misunderstand and view it as complacency and leniency to both self and others.

In this area, there is no rule of right and wrong level and type of intimacy, as each person is unique in their makeup. What matters most is that as a worker, we have a relationship with our work. Afterall, creation itself is work, God himself being the ultimate creator, having a relationship with all that he created. Once we cease to want to maintain our relationships at work at all, only then it really signalls something being very wrong...

Having completed my LCCI course in basic accounting, I've always been fascinated by the defintions of terms "capital", "asset" and "liability", though more from a sociological and linguistic point-of-view. As we draw to the close of this year, I've come to realise that God is indeed absolutely fair and just to everyone. Each one of us, has an equal amount of time in a full day. Everyone only has 24 hours. No more, no less. We are all given equal capital. Whether it translates into an asset or liability, will depend on how we work to maintain our relationships. Happy New Year's Eve and blessed 2012!

P.S. For those who are tired with their work and/or maintenance of relationships, maybe just sneak a peak into the book of Ecclesiastes of the Bible. It seems a depressing read upon first glance, but take time to digest it slowly. We have all the same amount of "capital" to use. Enjoy!

What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.
Ecclesiastes 3:9-14 (NIV)