DUBAI: Running away from your job because you feel you have been unnecessarily living a pathetically pitiful existence because of it, will not work because you could have all along been just missing the whole picture – yourself.
This, according to Leah Weiss, lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, who said people who feel trapped in their jobs should, instead of trying to escape from it, realize that the suffering endured at work can be the path to personal transformation.
Running away from a job we don’t like, she said, may not alleviate the suffering.
“It’s like breaking up with one person after another and another in romantic relationships. There’s a common denominator in what’s not working,” said Weiss.
Weiss, author of the book, “How We Work: Live Your Purpose, Reclaim Your Sanity, and Embrace the Daily Grind,” acceded that “nothing provides more opportunities than the workplace for us to feel discouraged, disappointed, bored, overwhelmed, envious, embarrassed, anxious, irritated, outraged, and afraid to say what we really feel.”
But, she stressed, “We are a big, big factor in our experience of work, much bigger than we tend to realize.”
“We’re in a much better position to change a bad situation if we’ve looked squarely at questions like, What’s going on with me as I’m going through my work day? What is the root cause of what’s happening to me? How much of this can I influence with my mindset?”
Weiss said the suffering at work can actually make better leaders and colleagues of people. “Our struggle becomes the bridge to compassion for other people who also are working hard and frustrated at times,” she explained.
“When we spend so much time with the same people, we sometimes dehumanize them. They become that annoying role or thing that is blocking us. We don’t think of them as we would if we realized that we all bring our whole lives to work, even if we’re not talking about it most of the time.”
