A couple more good questions based on what you wrote might be:

“What is the personal meaning I want your work to have?”

“What approach to my work do I believe will generate personal meaning?”

“What will it take to live this meaning?”

I know these are the kinds of questions that can take a long time, sometimes years, to answer, but of course that’s what makes them the best, richest kind of inquiry.

Eleven years ago I was really struggling with my own professional work. It felt completely futile. I was out there in organizations trying to
“drive fear out of the workplace.” But I was getting pretty depressed and angry about it because the results were often meager and the work was all uphill. Off in the mountains for a few days, carrying my frustration like a heavy pack, I asked this question of myself, “So what is the spiritual meaning of my work?” I had no sooner put the question down on a page of my journal than these words sprang into me: “Silence, Beauty, and Timelessness are the real change agents in the world.” I was stunned — and still am. I interpreted the message to mean simply, “Dan, stop trying to BE the agent of change — instead be the channel for the REAL agents of change.” And that moment did change things. I had received something from “outside,” from a Silence that indeed was speaking to me–and through me. It was humbling and empowering and it started something working in me that has worked ever since.

Indeed, the approach is the thing…

Thanks for asking the questions, Chris, and thanks for listening to my story!

I have worked with any number of very aware, long-term leaders who at some point come upon a disappointment…the loss of an illusion that their organization is what they thought it might be or could be. A depression ensues, an anger, and then release, as people let go of the illusion and discover they are really okay without it. But it is a loss.

I believe we can always step outside the edges of “the way things should be” and find even richer meanings, infused with the newest and oldest branch of truth: there is more meaning to receive, if only we are sufficiently open.

I was listening to Joni Mitchell’s great song, “For Free,” describing the clarinet player on the street corner who has got the music right…and plays for free. I always get the sense that she envies this free spirit. Well, I suppose none of us want to be destined to never make a dime from the gifts we offer, but sometimes unless we are, the right thing just continues to wait for us in the wings.