Eric Maisel on Meaningless Work

My life coach is part of Eric Maisel’s blog tour and was kind enough to ask him the question I’ve been struggling with: “How the heck do I make meaning at a meaningless job?” His answer showed me why his book is so helpful to me: he doesn’t talk around reality – nothing is perfect and sometimes reality bites. He isn’t suggesting to desperately fit a round peg into a square hole. His suggestions are realistic – and I am happy to say I am working on all of them:

1. Identifying parts of your job that do feel meaningful and focus energy and attention there.
2. Do some meaningful work prior to going to your day job to create meaning capital to get you through the day.
3. Refocus priorities from money to meaning.

I haven’t spent too much time on figuring out if there are parts of my job that are meaningful to me, so that’s one thing I’ll work on. But I try to start my day with about 45 minutes of writing (unless my insomnia stole too much shut-eye time then I found it more meaningful to sleep a bit more – seriously! The beauty of making your own meaning, you can make it any which way you want to!). In order to prepare myself for the third part, I am currently enrolled in a Your Money or Your Life class, which is very helpful. While I can’t make drastic changes right now, I can start decluttering and preparing for a shift in my life.

The interview also covers a helpful distinction of Maisel’s approach from Victor Frankl’s. Aside from Maisel being an atheist (an admission that I think is wonderful in itself), Maisel points out that “for him [Frankl] there are ultimate meanings to discern and for me there are only personal meanings to make.” So, while Maisel asks us to take responsibility for meaning in our lives, he does that with a call to make meaning, not to find meaning that was created by some supernatural thing.

(Please see the meaning category on my blog for more musing on Maisel’s book. I also wrote a book summary on The Van Gogh Blues.)

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