I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.
– Rabindranath Tagore
Joy is fundamental to human existence and well-being. Working in a service vocation like healthcare can be deeply gratifying, but it also comes with stresses and challenges that can take a toll on our health and well-being.
The rising rates of physician burnout and other serious outcomes led to an expansion of the Triple Aim to a Quadruple Aim, adding a focus on bringing back joy to the practice of medicine. Finding and sustaining a sense of meaning and joy in one’s work is key.
How do we “spark joy” and/or keep joy alive over the course of life and career? I invite you to reflect on the following:
What about my work do I find particularly motivating?
Even on really difficult days, what pushes me forward?
In what aspects or areas of my work do I experience the greatest sense of purpose or meaning?
Here are my 10 thoughts on finding and sustaining a sense of meaning and joy in one’s work!
Core Mission: Remember what brought you to this vocation, what connects your work to your purpose
Contemplate: Take time regularly to reflect and reconnect with your core mission
Communicate with your kindred spirits, remember you are not alone, we are in this together
Celebrate small wins, your own and those of others
Contribute: Be present for yourselves and others, pay forward
Create memories, a legacy
Compassion: Maintain compassion for others and self
Courage: Summon courage to have voice and agency, empower others
Curiosity: Express your curiosity especially when things get rough
Community: Build a Community, Community is nothing but our CommonUnity!!!
Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
– Howard Thurman
Happy Thoughts!
I am happy to see that all three questions of the prompt are referring to positivity such as motivation, moving forwards and, experiencing meaning, purpose and joy in your work. The negative factors like the challenges, stresses and the oft quoted phrases such as burn-out, are presumed as part of any work assignment and which need to be overcome rather than succumbed to. The abstract sense of joy and happiness is the one that links the two, without which there is stress and tension and with these there is meaning and purpose. It is therefore rightly said that enjoy whatever you do and do whatever you enjoy.
All questions of the prompt can be answered once you start believing that work is worship, that it is a blessing that we are alive to work and worship, that stress, burnout, and hardships, all are pebbles in the path of work and worship. Nothing comes easy, everything has a price. However, it should not be so high as to threaten the very life itself. Everything else is a matter of accommodation, adjustments and acceptance.
When it comes to work, it can be divided into three types, the absolutely essential ones that are part of your duty, the involuntary ones that are imposed on you even against your will, and the voluntary ones that are chosen by yourself.
Your essential duties include fulfilling your responsibilities towards those who depend on you such as your family, patients, clients, congregation and so on. Since these are obligatory, one may as well enjoy them. It is the mental understanding and acceptance of this fact that can be your driving force against all odds.
Caring and sharing is the voluntary kind of work that you choose. You decide what gives you happiness and pleasure, do it with all your might, and enjoy it.
Negative issues like stress and burn out are related to the work that is imposed, overburdened, accepted unwillingly or becomes disinteresting and stale over time. If there are choices, a change of work is justified. However, life and career do not always offer such opportunities. Accommodations, adjustments and acceptance may be the only choices left.
Appreciation, encouragement and hope are other factors that can keep one going during the difficult phases of life and career. These can come easily with the right choice of your associations, company, friends, relationships and role models. They can help you in your moments of feeling run down.
What can keep you pushing forward, other than these is you, your own self-esteem, self-confidence and faith in whatever you trust. In our Indian philosophy, we believe that everything is cyclical, including worst days and better times. It is this hope of change for the better that remains the main motivation during the darker phases of life.
Hope can be expected only after your own efforts to overcome the situations. Being resilient is the key word here. This wisdom is to know when to resist, to give in or to change. Being resilient means to be able to make your own choice between fight, flight and freeze. Even animals know this but with them the response is spontaneous. We humans can make our choices and responses as a well calculated and considered maneuver so as to make our life livable, our career enjoyable and our work with sense of purpose and meaning.
The spark of joy expresses itself externally when it is triggered by the happiness internally. It can only come from positivity of thoughts in balanced minds.
The ten ‘C’s listed as solution are very valid. The most important item of them is to celebrate.
Once we accept the fact that life itself is a reason for celebration, every moment of being alive calls for celebration, under all circumstances. Nothing should make you lose your sense of joy and happiness. As Mahatma Gandhi had said, ‘Nothing can hurt me without my permission’.
Live for yourself but live for others too. To live is human but to serve is divine. Be yourself and celebrate life, under all circumstances.
Blessings to all.