A couple weeks ago I participated in a workshop run by a life coach called “What is My Work and How Is It Working For Me?” I think I know the current answer, but suspect I need a bit more time to fully accept and embrace it. (I’ve recently devoted more time to parenting and managing the household, and less to working for pay.)
Here’s a snapshot of the “work wheel” (also referred to as a wheel of life) I created at the workshop. Each slice of the pie represents each category of my life’s “work.” The size of each slice represents the amount of time spent on each type of work. The P’s denote which activities I regard as fulfilling a life Purpose; the N’s denote activities that are dictated by Necessity. (Disregard the shaded-out slice: I made a error is slice-sizing. Or maybe that was my unconscious mind telling me my priorities are screwed up…)
The life coach led us through a series of activities designed to tease out things like our values and our vision for our lives. Then, we threw them up next to our work wheel, trying to figure out where we might need more or less of something, or if something was missing all together.
Or not. Try it out: make yourself a work wheel. Perhaps you’re one of the lucky few whose slices are all perfectly aligned with your values and vision. Bully for you! (Really.)
Or perhaps you, like many Generation X’ers, feel dissatisfied with life. A. O. Scott took a look at Sam Lipsyte’s novel “The Ask” in a New York Times article last week. He says it’s “the definitive literary treatment of a hugely important social phenomenon… the onset of the Generation X midlife crisis.” He also says that “Hot Tub Time Machine” is Gen X’s answer to “The Big Chill.”
Hold up: maybe I’m going through a mid-life crisis and that’s why I’ve been so busy navel-gazing of late.
At a certain point, Dad buys a sports car, or starts a rock band, or has an affair or walks out on Mom or quits the law firm to make goat cheese. When this kind of thing happens to Mom, it’s not a crisis but an awakening.
The wheel of life exercise should prove useful to anyone of any age, and needs re-jiggering from time to time as your life changes. Sitting here at my perch under the banyan tree (at least that’s my goal – to become as enlightened as possible), I bid you well in your search for meaning.
