My professional life was all about people, procedures and producing profits. Unlike the vast majority of men who came before me, I was neither a farmer or shepherd, priest or solider. Instead, my daily bread was earned as a member of the modern age managerial class.
A vocation birthed in post-industrial America when humans no longer produced objects but managed, marketed and monetized subjects. My primary responsibility was to ensure maximum profitability for my employer’s shareholders. Wealth generated because the United States is willing to pay far more for prescription drugs than the rest of the world even while its own financial health deteriorated; even while its own citizens became sicker with each passing year.
My life’s contribution did nothing to feed, care for or nourish the world. Instead, it allowed me and my family to enjoy the finest things the world offers to those who can afford them. And with each high-end experience, I was told how special I was because I spent a significant amount of money on stuff and status. While I’ve written extensively about the hollowness and hubris of my past profession in pharmaceutical marketing, this week’s reflection is industry agnostic.
It’s been almost eight years since I’ve worked in an office and five years since I’ve worked for an employer. With this gift of time, I have a perspective about my past professional life that wasn’t evident when I was in the thick of things. Reflections that remind me of a life in which work defined my worth.
Most of my adult life interactions all began with one question, “what do you do for a living?” A question that reveals nothing of real substance about that person, but says plenty about what we value in this society. While work can be virtuous, like every virtue, it can be distorted into a vice; a moral failing.
Like believing what you do to earn money defines you’re worth as a human. A vice I vocalized and venerated. Another lie that distorts God’s good world because humans were never created only to labor. You are not a horse, an ox, or a machine; you are a child of God. God is love.
When I experienced my first lay-off at fifty-two after decades of professional “success” I was devastated. My identity and value were aligned with my career. A passing position in a world I’m only passing through. A position, like all my earthly possessions and passions, that will remain here when I expire.
I defined my worth via work because work was the center of my life even if I said otherwise. My early mornings, evenings, and weekends were in service to what I needed to accomplish to advance my career. A belief that made complete sense since my faith was in myself. Only in Don did I trust.
A faith that would eventually be broken and shattered because every human has limitations, every human will eventually experience suffering and every human will die. My faith in myself was a false faith. The same false faith that ensnares many people who believe their career is what they should hold near and dear within their heart.
As I look back on my career, I realize all the unnecessary worrying, anxiety, and trepidation that I generated because I lived in fear of losing both stuff and standing. My self-confessed selfishness because I filled my wallet with gold and platinum membership cards. Until I emptied my heart of fear, arrogance and false pride, so it could be filled with the peace that passes all understanding.
As I look back on my career, I think about all the times I wanted to impress others and my desire for everyone to “like” me. Constantly concerned about what the world thought about me, as opposed to the grace that God offers everyone. Ninety-five percent of the people I encountered throughout my professional life I no longer remember, but in that moment they were all that mattered to me.
As I look back on my career, I recognize that the world will spin with or without me. A truth I denied when I was younger, when I thought I spun the world. God spins the world, not me or you. Truth revealed with the perspective of time and thought.
Peace. God loves you.
If you want to learn more about how my spiritual awakening came to be, you can read about it in Finding God in Vegas: A Gen X Spiritual Awakening; available on Amazon and across all platforms in print or electronic or audio.