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Zen and the Art of Making a Living is not your usual career counselling book. It takes a broad and inspiring view of the nature of people and work. Its author, Laurence Boldt, is an American author and career consultant. This extract outlines his unconventional approach and calls for a new view on work and deciding on your path.
The approach of traditional career models is to help people defend against problems. The implicit assumption is a notion of work as a means of defending against the problems of poverty, ridicule, boredom, and the like. A problem-solving approach to work puts us in a defensive posture, from which we hope for escape — ultimately, from work itself. (Defending, after all, is a rather tiresome business.) Since work is something we are forced to do to solve our problems, the implication is that no problems equals no work. So, many dream of winning the lottery and "solving all their problems" and not "having to" work.
We view work, not as a means of achieving freedom from problems, but as the vehicle for expressing the freedom to create. Creating your life's work is not solving the occupation problem. It is the art of creative living. From this perspective, you are not a problem but a creative, living being. Work is not a problem but a natural, ongoing, creative process. We are not interested in coming up with a good solution to the career problem but in the full creative expression of the individual.
Your life's work does not exist "out there" in a world apart. You can't order up the perfect career or set of careers the way you might order a lawn mower from the Sears catalogue. Being too concerned with what is "out there" before you know what you want "in here" puts you in a position of powerlessness. We encourage you to begin by identifying the results you want, and then to move confidently and deliberately in that direction, no matter how small your steps may seem. In this way, you move from strength and remain in creative control.
If it's truly creative, the direction of your life's work is "from the inside out." ... Traditional career models tend to view your creativity, energy, and zest for life as rough edges that must be shaved off to effectuate a better fit with what is "out there." Exactly what doesn't fit (the rough edges of the old model) is what will drive the process of creating a life's work — your creativity, energy, and zest for life.
We have been told that we must face the facts of life; but we must also, if we are really going to live, face the spirit and the emotional power of life. ... It is ... ridiculous to reduce your life to a set of facts. You are not your place of birth, your height, weight, or degrees, your resume, or credit history. You are a being of spirit, emotional power, and intelligence.
Traditional career models are only interested in the facts of your life, for example, your education, skills, training, and experience. We will consider the facts but also the all-important creative intangibles. From the perspective of life as art, the facts of your life are the media with which you will create. Colour is not painting. Notes are not music. Words are not poetry. For colour to become painting; notes, music; or words, poetry, there must be knowledge of technique, emotional power, and the radiance of spirit. To view your life as art is likewise to recognise that the facts only become significant, and really interesting, through the application of technique, emotional power, and the radiance of the spirit. We are not negating the importance of facts. You require technical skill and knowledge of the marketplace the way a painter requires colour — these are essential. But remember, as the French painter Chardin said, "One uses colour, but paints with feeling." ...
Since our problem-solving efforts are always tail-chasing and do not resolve, we soon tire of them and seek relief in escape. From a problem-solving approach, escape is what passes for joy. It is not the true joy of "heightened consciousness," but the limited pleasure of diminished awareness. ... As long as we seek to defend against problems, we try to escape from them. As long as we view work as a means of solving problems, we "live for the weekends." ...
[A] mechanistic view of the world gave us a set of terms that still affect how we think about work. Work as a concept is "the treadmill" or "the old grind." Work as action is "cranked out" and "geared up." One's relationship to work is a matter of "fitting in" or of "meshing with." Economies are machines for making jobs. (Incidentally, our word job originates from the Middle English jobbe, meaning "mouthful," and clearly comes from the notion of work as a solution to the feeding problem.) From this perspective, work is a very serious affair, a boring routine, a dull drill. Since this is what people think work is, it's no wonder they want to escape from it.
We view work first and foremost as a vehicle of self-expression. This expression naturally gives a life of integrity, service, enjoyment, and excellence. Your natural self expression comes out of you and is therefore integral, an expression of "thine own self." It is naturally your highest and best service, since the best thing you can do for others is to be yourself. Self expression is naturally joyous and exciting and naturally prompts one to work with excellence. When you are doing something integral to yourself, something you love, you naturally want to make it the best you can — the way you want to give a friend a lovely present. Your self-expression is your gift to the world. Discovering your life's work is not a mechanical process of assembling facts; it is more a matter of trusting yourself. Realising it is a matter of trusting yourself and gaining specific knowledge, taking definite action, and persevering.
by Laurence G. Boldt from Zen and the Art of Making a Living: A Practical Guide to Creative Career Design, Penguin Arkana. Republished with permission.
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