People often say they are in search of “meaningful work.” But what exactly makes for “meaningful work”? Michaela O’Donnell-Long’s new book, Make Work Matter, suggests that finding “meaningful work” may not be what we thought it was. Here are some great takeaways from her book regarding our elusive search for meaningful work.
“Finding Your Passion” is Not Enough
One of the most common messages our culture gives us is that meaningful work is about finding what we are passionate about. Accordingly, we are to discover our passions and then approach work as a way to fulfill these passions. But O’Donnell-Long gives multiple reasons to question this. She notes that behind this approach is a privilege that not all in our society enjoy (to say nothing of the rest of the world and the working conditions throughout most of human history).
What’s more, we are often not quite clear ourselves about what we are passionate about. Moreover, starting with what we love and then attempting to find work that matches what we love can be a fraught exercise. After all, there are not always jobs matching our loves. Are we to treat work like a Procrustean bed—forcing the job to line up with our passions and cutting out the bits that don’t?
“Finding our calling is a journey involving much more than merely “following our heart.””
The truth is, finding our calling is more than simply externalizing our internal desires into a 9-5. Of course, our gifting and affinities are part of the equation of calling. But, as O’Donnell-Long says, callings are “less like treasures waiting to be uncovered in the sand and more like slabs of marble waiting to be chiseled away over time.” Finding our calling is a journey involving much more than merely “following our heart.”
Related to the problem of equating meaningful work to an exercise in “self-discovery” is the issue of identity. When work is framed primarily in terms of self-actualization work easily becomes seen as an extension of oneself. This confused enmeshment has some nasty side effects. On the one hand, those who don’t have a job that aligns with their “passions” can feel shame. (Often behind the common refrain, “I’m still figuring out what I want to do when I grow up” belies the dissonance many feel between their perceived identity and their current job.)
Alternatively, those who land a dream job are susceptible to viewing their work as their means of significance. Turning to work as the path of personal significance leaves one incredibly vulnerable to workaholism—to say nothing of the emptiness that comes with viewing the good life in terms of self-aggrandizement through financial security and consumer goods. Is there a better way?
Calling and Commandments
Our significance requires a source that moves beyond a given economy or the circumstances of a given job. (In our changing world of work, one might wonder why anyone would tie themselves tightly to such a vulnerable source of significance!) The very idea of “significance” implies that our work is meant to be part of something that transcends ourselves, our immediate context and particulars, and our culture’s ephemeral narratives of self-actualization, acquisition, status, and financial security.
“...our true calling is connected to the two great commandments: Love God and love our neighbor as ourself.”
As O’Donnell-Long argues, we were made for a larger story. To identify this larger narrative in which to nest our work, O’Donnell-Long challenges her readers to think about the issue of “calling.” In static, pre-modern Western societies, calling comes from one’s birth (one is born a “shoemaker,” “blacksmith,” etc.). And in today’s fluctuating, late modern Western society, calling comes from a vision of self-expression and self-actualization. Rejecting these options, O’Donnell-Long calls her readers to consider how our true calling is connected to the two great commandments: Love God and love our neighbor as ourself. For, as she suggests, our search for “meaningful work” finds its traction when work is viewed as a journey into these commandments.
How does our work serve as a vehicle for loving God and loving our neighbor as ourself? Let’s take each in turn. Loving God in our work means we find our significance in our relationship with God rather than find our significance in our work. Finding our significance in Christ, our work becomes a primary context in which to respond to the love of God for us in Christ. And what does this look like in our work?
For O’Donnell-Long, we love God in our work by loving our neighbor. Drawing on Luther’s doctrine of work as acting on behalf of God to provide loving service to one’s neighbor, O’Donnell-Long charges her readers “work on behalf of Jesus toward God’s priorities of healing, redemption, and shalom.” Or, to put it another way, work takes on significance as it provides an opportunity to respond with empathy, imagination, and concrete forms of love to those our work puts us in contact with.
Quite helpfully, O’Donnell-Long does not stop here. She highlights that the command to love our neighbor is also a command to love ourself. Therefore, we do not seek the flourishing of our neighbor to the neglect of ourselves. Rather, our work is also meant to drive us into our true humanity; that is, our work is meant to be a tool that shapes us to be more like Jesus Christ—empathetic, embedded in meaningful relationships, using our gifting for creative solutions, freed from shame, and resilient in the face of difficulty. As a result, our work gains significance not only in that it draws us closer to God and others, but also ourself.
These reflections merely scratch the surface. If you desire to think more about what makes for meaningful work, I encourage you to pick up Michaela O’Donnell-Long’s thoughtful and helpful recent release Make Work Matter.
Robert Covolo is a Cultural Theologian and Author of Fashion Theology. He is also on staff here at the Center for Faith + Work Los Angeles, serving as our Director of Vocational Discipleship.