Article January 12, 2004 Issue

Working for a HIGHER purpose

By Annette Kreutziger-Herr

For Many workers today, their job seems to be more about overload than blessing. And yet, everyone deserves a meaningful life, the opportunity to develop qualities and talents, and work that somehow leaves its mark on the world. Regardless of where one lives, we are all seeing the effects of market forces on jobs and the economy, such as the gap between those who have more work than they can cope with and those who have no work at all.

I love my work as a university professor, yet when I take an honest look at my daily routine, it can be more about dealing with disturbances than teaching the history of music. I sometimes wonder how I can rediscover the lightness of being and the spirit of adventure that make life and work joyful.

If going to work feels like putting on a yoke and plowing through the hard crust of an unyielding soil—a lot of effort without much to show for it—maybe it's because we've accepted a flawed concept of life itself. Call it "the Adam model."

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