There is no more common emotion to feel around work than that we have failed. We have failed because we have made less money than we hoped; because we have been sidelined in our organisation; because many of our acquaintances have triumphed; because our schemes have remained on the drawing board; because we have been constantly anxious and, for long stretches, tired and bored.
There is no more common emotion to feel around work than that we have failed. We have failed because we have made less money than we hoped; because we have been sidelined in our organisation; because many of our acquaintances have triumphed; because our schemes have remained on the drawing board; because we have been constantly anxious and, for long stretches, tired and bored.
We tend to meet our sorrows personally. We believe that our failures are tightly bound up with our own character and choices. But the suggestion here is that the single greatest cause of our professional failure lies in an area that self-aware, moderate and modest people are instinctively loath to blame: the system we live within. Whatever our natural hesitancy, it seems we deserve to recast at least some of the explanations for our woes away from intimate experience and towards large-scale historical and economic forces. Although on a daily basis we are enmeshed in problems (inadequacies, desires and panics) that feel as if they must be our responsibility alone, the real causes may lie far beyond ourselves, in the greater, grander currents of history: in the way our industries are structured, our values are determined, and our assumptions generated. For a long time now, capitalism has been a confirmedly tricky system in which to retain equilibrium, make peace with ourselves, find fulfilment in our work - and cope. It's not quite our fault if, rather too often, we feel like losers.
This isn't to make a particular dig at capitalism, or to suggest that there may be easier alternatives at hand. Every economy that has ever existed has been bound up with multiple sorrows. Organising an equitable system of incentives, goads and rewards is as yet beyond us. We should be allowed to level criticisms, not in the name of arguing for an alternative utopia, but in order to depersonalise our sense of failure.
作者简介
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The School of Life is a global organization helping people lead more fulfilled lives. Through our range of books, gifts and stationery we aim to prompt more thoughtful natures and help everyone to find fulfillment. The School of Life is a resource for exploring self-knowledge, relationships, work, socializing, finding calm, and enjoying culture through content, community, and c...
The School of Life is a global organization helping people lead more fulfilled lives. Through our range of books, gifts and stationery we aim to prompt more thoughtful natures and help everyone to find fulfillment. The School of Life is a resource for exploring self-knowledge, relationships, work, socializing, finding calm, and enjoying culture through content, community, and conversation. You can find us online, in stores and in welcoming spaces around the world offering classes, events, and one-to-one therapy sessions.
The School of Life is a rapidly growing global brand, with over 5 million YouTube subscribers, 343,000 Facebook followers, 183,000 Instagram followers and 160,000 Twitter followers.
The School of Life Press brings together the thinking and ideas of the School of Life creative team under the direction of series editor, Alain de Botton. Their books share a coherent, curated message that speaks with one voice: calm, reassuring, and sane.
Compared to the play of childhood, we are leading fatally restricted lives. There is no easy cure. As Adam Smith argued, the causes don't lie in some personal error; it is a limitation forced upon us by the greater logic of a productive, competitive market economy. However, we can allow ourselves to mourn that there will always be large aspects of our character that won't be satisfied. We are not being silly or ungrateful; we are simply registering the clash between the demands of the employment market and the free, wide-ranging potential of every human life. There is a touch of sadness to this insight. But it is also a reminder that this lack of fulfillment will accompany us in whatever job we choose: we shouldn't attempt to overcome it by switching jobs. No one job can ever be enough. (查看原文)
There is a parallel here between our experience around work and what happens in relationships. There is no doubt that we could (without any blame attaching to a current partner) have great relationships with dozens, maybe hundreds, of different people. They would bring to the fore different sides of our personality, please us (and upset us) in different ways, and introduce us to new excitements. Yet, as with work, specialization brings advantages: it means we can focus, bring up children in stable environments, and learn the disciplines of compromise. In love and work, life requires us to be specialists even though we are by nature equally suited for wide-ranging exploration. (查看原文)
0 有用 海上飞来丘比特 2021-10-23 14:18:51
Quality easy read to put the mind at ease.
0 有用 冻僧 2020-11-02 03:31:54
学会放过自己