Who are you Really?

Where does our value lie? How do we measure our worth?

Years ago we met a man aligned with his inner self

He’d been building houses for the desperately poor in Mexico. Since 2001, his organization has built 80 houses for families who were living, literally, with “no [solid] roof over their heads”.

In a former life, this man was a successful administrator at a university who loved his job and his life living on 15 acres in a bucolic countryside. He often told people that he would happily die at his desk. Then one day while visiting a Mexican town, he stumbled upon a larger calling that triggered a deeply held

… value: to make a significant contribution to community by meeting the needs of the extremely poor, and a

….purpose, to which he should devote the rest of his life: to provide that community of poor people with permanent shelter which led to the

…..action of building 500 square foot cottages for families without permanent shelter that included private bedrooms, an indoor toilet, and an interior living space.

The corporate culture in the USA often works against establishing value and purpose at work because the drive for shareholder gain operates at the expense of employee satisfaction and contribution to the greater good. Many corporate employees tell us they feel they are “drowning” in such a work environment.

In the NY Times article, “Does Your Job Make You Happy?”, Anna North points to studies that more and more younger workers are migrating to socially conscious companies. These employees

“will take less compensation in exchange for a greater sense of purpose.”

We are not suggesting that we all retire and build houses for the poor. But if we experience a sense of emptiness at work (or elsewhere), maybe it’s time to create a new life for ourselves.

Ask:

What are my deepest held values?

What do I want my legacy to be?

Where does the passion of my heart meet the need of the world?

Recently my mother in law died at age ninety four. She had be disabled with dementia for four years and her body was becoming increasingly frail. A few days before her passing she commented to her caretaker,

“I’m not my body. That’s not me”

In that awakened moment she groaned through the fog of her confusion and struggle towards a truth that takes most of us a lifetime to realize,

We are not that

We are not our body, physical attractiveness, social status, professional achievements, cultural privilege, or any other temporal way of tabulating worth.

We are not numbers on a scorecard

We are our eternal consciousness. Realizing that in our lifetime is the measure of a life well-lived. There, at last, we glimpse the fullness of being human.