“Work should be and can be productive and rewarding, meaningful and maturing, enriching and fulfilling, healing and joyful.  Work is one of our greatest privileges.  Work can be poetic.” – Max DePree, author, The Art of Leadership

“Work by its very nature (is) about violence – to the spirit as well as to the body…It is, above all (or beneath all), about daily humiliations.  To survive the day is triumph enough for the walking wounded…It is about a search, too, for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday dying.  Perhaps immortality, too, is part of the quest to be remembered…” – Studs Terkel, author, Working 

Can work be poetic? Or is work by its very nature about violence? How do we make sense of these two perspectives on work?  Is it “either-or” or “both-and”? Maybe yes, maybe no?

As I was reflecting on these thoughts, I was reminded of the first time I heard the song Seasons of Love in the Broadway musical Rent with its refrain about the 525,600 minutes. Being an accountant, I did the math, and yes, 525,600 minutes is equivalent to a year. The more I learned about the songs and the play’s theme, the more I realized that they are prompting the listeners to reflect on how we measure a year in life and suggesting that the most meaningful measure is not in time alone but in love, experiences, and relationships. 

Now that I am retired from more than 30 years of active remunerated work in a public accounting firm, I have a lot more than 525,600 minutes to measure whether my life made sense in the challenging world of work.

I learned what the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard meant when he said, “Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward.”

I looked back and began to understand what my working life meant to me, to my family, and to the people I worked and served.

I was in my 20s when I started working. As the eldest in the family, I needed to find work and help with family finances. I grabbed the first opportunity that came my way and landed a job as an audit associate. I received a modest salary that allowed me to support one of my siblings in her school expenses. In this phase of my life, the work question I was responding to was, “How do I make a living?”

In my 30s, the work question I struggled with became, “Is this the right career or job for me?” I was already married by this time and had four growing-up children. Our combined salary still fell short of the increasing expenses of a growing family. I tried to get better-paying work elsewhere. I applied for a managerial post in a multinational company, but I was offered a supervisory role, which is a similar role I do in my current work. I declined the offer and stayed in the public accounting firm.

In my 40s, the so-called midlife crisis years, I was faced with the question, “Who do I want to become?” I was confident with my response, “I am a partner of the firm.” At age 39, I was admitted to the partnership, a leadership role that allowed me to contribute to and grow the firm’s revenue and shape its future.

In my 50s, I was serving a portfolio of our firm’s clients and leading a team of professionals who worked together to meet the expectations of these local, multinational, and global clients. The question of why I work became more significant: “What difference am I making in the world?” How I was able to help our people and the clients we served become successful in what they do is my response to this question.

Now in my 60s, I continue to volunteer, serve on boards of organizations, accept teaching assignments in financial management and governance, and do other work that allows me to use my developed skills as a professional accountant. In this phase of my working life, I am responding to the question, “What will be my legacy?”

Most of us spend this live-forward life in our place of work. How we view work helps us transform our life into something more meaningful and enriching. One of the ways to view our work is like that of an artist mastering his craft.

A true artist’s work is typically associated with creativity, expression, and the pursuit of beauty. These elements need not be exclusive to painting, music, or any art in how we approach our work, regardless of our profession. Whether you are an engineer designing a new structure, a teacher guiding students through a complex concept, or an accountant making sense of the numbers in the financial statements, the creative decisions you make in the course of your work are akin to the choices an artist makes in creating his masterpiece.

When we view work as an art, we can make sense of what makes sense about our work. Through our work, we can integrate who we are with what we do. 

Borrowing a line from the great artist and genius Vincent Van Gogh, “In art, as in work, one must give heart and soul.”

––––

This article was originally posted on the Manila Bulletin on 26 October 2024.