Are YOU the Work You Do?

Do you enjoy your work?

Now, come on. Don't shrug it off.

This not meant to be a rhetorical question.

Dan Pontefract, Author of the Purpose Effect, in one of his HBR article, points out that whether you enjoy your work or not boils down to how your job fits with your sense of purpose. 

He advocates knowledge workers to find that sweet spot where the role you hold, the organization you work for, and the broader sense of purpose you espouse, align and work in synergy with each other. 

Let me be honest. My gut doesn't respond too well to this.It sounds like an intellectual answer, written in the same way countless success stories are written, post-facto - after the organization featured in the story has become successful.

You can never figure out Purpose by asking the successful ones what their purpose was.

What can you ask then?

There is a deeper question which needs to be inquired first in all seriousness, before we get to talk about, well, Purpose. 

Are YOU the Work you do? 

If this question sounds metaphysical, let me make matters simpler for you. Have you paid attention to how you unconsciously respond to the following question in an everyday social setting?

"So, What do you do?"

Do you describe the work you do as a "noun"? - "I am a Consultant and a Storyteller /<Insert your Job Role> with XYZ"

Or do you describe the work you do as a "verb" - "Well, I do consulting and storytelling /<Insert your work activity> with XYZ"

I wager that you would prefer to answer this question by the former rather than the latter. In which case, it is most likely that you identify yourself by the Work you do.We are seduced by this idea that we are the work we do because we love being swayed by stories.

What else could Purpose be other than a story born in the intersection of "Who Am I ?" and "What do I do for a living?"

I must confess, It's hard to remain immune to the relentlessly invigorating beat of the stories floating in the digital ether and not be swayed by them.

Stories of entrepreneurs changing the world. Stories of belonging to community dreaming a beautiful world our hearts know to be true. Stories of passions blooming like rare wild flowers in barren lands parched of moonshot dreams. Stories of redemption from the rut of the industrial middle-class upbringing. 

As we get enamored by the tunes of stories that sound music to ears, our lips start humming them. Our limbs start moving to the exuberance of its rhythms. Our bodies start impersonating those storytellers desperately to recreate that feeling we felt when we first heard them.

And when you have gone through all of this, it's definitely not comforting to wake up one day to the truth that emerges when life knocks your socks off the reverie of your story: 

You are not the WORK you do!

When you come in touch those parts of your Life which can never fit to a neat story, no matter how romantic it is, you slowly start to realize that the story was exciting all the while, because it was YOU who was starring at it, and not the other way.

And thus begins the game of polarity we've learned to play unconsciously in our lives, when we start oscillating between the Self and the System.

When I oscillate towards the System, I am driven. I am part of something much bigger than that little cocoon I find myself in. There is a certain rush of romance, when I journey with my community, sacrificing my petty individual whims and fancies, towards the larger goal that I see in my horizon, for the System at large.

Today every startup which wants to make 'a dent in the universe' aspires to create this mythology. Our technological culture eulogizes Steve Jobs, despite being the arsehole he admitted himself to be, because he was singularly successful in creating this mythology in the minds of billions for, you know, shiny little objects of technology, designed for perpetual obsolescence, whose grimy back stories of life-threatening labour can never fully be understood.

What happens when the glamour of the Purpose starts to fade away?

I oscillate back to my Self. What do I discover in in the deeper mines of the Self?

I discover that it is difficult to hold this tension between the sway of the System and the resoluteness of the Self. Therefore, I resort to pre-determined roles and identities, which have been shaped and influence by the memories of my past.

When the System becomes my mooring, all behaviours I exhibit are based on Role that I would like to emulate. What does this world expect of me? How do I stand up to the expectations of the System I feel connected with? Capitalism. Communism. Techno-Utopianism. All of these and more are systems that we subscribe to, in part or or in total, even when each of these contradict each other,

Every role thus defined for this System, have evolved over time to adapt with the challenges found in the System. These expectations eventually get codified and find expression as specific "models" which determine how an individual ought to play his or her role.

And when my Self becomes my mooring, all behaviours I exhibit are based on my Identity.

Who am I ? What gives me meaning to my self? As I grow to understand the world and myself, my identity evolves over time with learning and impressions about myself. As I start investing my life energy toward my identity, I start filtering every life experience through the lens of this identity - a complex matrix of my individual values, my choices and aspirations.

So how do I navigate these polarities and boundaries?

Every time I encounter a new situation in my life, I am faced with these tensions - Where do I anchor myself in? Do I respond to the expectations set by System or do I respond from what seems more naturally attuned to my life experiences arising from the Self? Do I fulfill my Roles? or do I stick to my Identity?

Essentially, the games we play with Purpose happen in each of these four quadrants.

What happens inside them? What do we play inside them?

We play hero myths we evoke inside ourselves. Not necessarily myths that have been written, but our own mythologies. Each of us have a mythology about ourselves. To understand the game of Purpose we play, it is essential to understand the mythologies we rhyme with.

This is the critical insight which Joseph Campbell beautifully shared with the world, when he urged humans to discover the language of mythology to navigate through the terrains of the unconscious.

I have been extremely fortunate to learn this framework from Raghu Ananthanarayanan, who formulated this creative approach to examine oneself and one's unconscious through theater, self-reflection and dialogue.

Let us now explore each of these quadrants, through the great Indian epic Mahabharata.

Role and System: I am an Administrator. I am Yudhishtra

I want to establish Order and Discipline

I value procedures and rules. I stay within framework of processes and policies. I expect others to respect process, policies and procedures

I respect tradition and see value in following norms and practices.

I set aside my emotion and intuitions and ensure that my actions are within the framework provided by the system. 

Role and Self: I am a Warrior. I am Bhima

I am strong, decisive and action-oriented. I like taking risks and operate on my own.

I am sensitive, emotional and alive. I am not very fond of analysis and see it as a lack of courage.

I value competitiveness, and believe that real talent and capability must be rewarded.

I love the excitement of working out tactical moves, the anticipation of an engagement with challenges make me alive. 

Identity and System: I am a Healer. I am Nakula

I value the attitude of service. I am open to ideas and suggestions from the team. I am willing to give the lead to others when they show greater expertise or ability for the tasks at hand.

I value equity and team work. I am focused on the group purpose.

I value technical competency and teamwork. I value people with strong commitment to contribute.

I often tend to sacrifice my own needs for the common cause. Sometimes, this leads me to feel used and unappreciated.

Identity and Self: I am a Philosopher. I am Sahadeva

I believe it is more important to observe the reality first before I commence action.

I am excited by the challenge of experimentation and discovery to pursue knowledge.

I value learning and knowledge. I am self-reliant and expect the same of others.

I am a proficient knowledge creator. I like to get immersed in study and research leading to acquisition of skills and knowledge.

Which quadrant do you identify yourself most with?

How do you see each of these quadrants affecting your assertion of Purpose?

It's important to note that we never live in just one quadrant alone. Depending on our context, we feel the propensity to identify ourselves in one quadrant or the other. Under life's most pressing circumstances, more often, we find ourselves attracted to one particular quadrant.

Can you examine which quadrant do you fall back to, when the going gets tough?

What do you tend to do under stress? What do you dislike being forced into?

I have barely scratched the surface of this fascinating framework which helps one to reflect on one's self and Purpose. Do share your responses, and we could reflect on this important question of our lives together.

Thank you for reading.

I am deeply grateful to Raghu for sharing this beautiful framework which he learned from Pulin Garg.

This powerful framework has helped me in many ways, beyond my self-reflection. Most recently, I adapted a version of this framework, in my work with the US Department of State and COVA - Confederation of Voluntary Association - to explore questions of Identity and Purpose to counter radicalisation and fanatic indoctrination in the Muslim community.

If you wish to delve deeper into this framework, I would strongly recommend you check out Raghu's book, Leadership Dharma - Arjuna, the timeless metaphor.