As beaten as my Mind and Body were by that horrendous job I left last February, perhaps most wounded of all was my Spirit. I had lost all satisfaction from my life, and any sense of pleasure, or joy. I got up in the morning, did the necessaries, went to work, worked until well after dark, came home, ate in front of the TV, and then dozed and ate and watched TV until bed time. Then I got up and did it again the next day.
I know that many people these days relate to this bleak, workaholic lifestyle. In an age where middle managers have seen their staff cut to bare bones and been forced to pick up the slack, 60- to 80-hour workweeks are sadly common. Let me insert here emphatically that the human body is not designed to endure this kind of duress. No matter what your boss says, no matter what top management expects, no matter what the hot-shot career-building “experts” insist, there is a toll to pay for this kind of abuse. In Japan, it has a name - karoshi (death by overwork)
Back in 1988 only 4% of karoshi cases, filed by surviving families against the companies who employed their loved ones, were successful. These days, the figure is over 40%. Now I don’t think it’s a bad thing that companies are being held liable for abusive work conditions, but let me make my position on this complex issue clear: It takes two to tango.
Remember the underpinnings of The First Habit? “I am responsible.” If I keep in mind that I’m making decisions all the time about what I’m going to do next, I will come to the inevitable conclusion that no matter how bad my employers are treating me, no matter how impossible their expectations, no matter how badly they cut my staff, no matter how badly I think I need the job I’m in – let there be no mistake: If I continue to work in that position I am deciding to keep that job. Few bosses actually hold a gun to their employees’ heads, in which case a reluctance to leave would be justified. And that’s the point: In almost every case, what is holding an employee in an abusive job situation is his or her own fear. By continuing to work at an abusive job, I have in one way or another weighed the pros of steady income and creature comfort against the cons of fear of the unknown and the prospect of complete financial ruin, and decided that keeping the job is the better of two evils.
This is not to denigrate the poor working class, forced to accept meager jobs for subsistence (or below subsistence) wages. This is not to blame people of color, long held down by the vicious shackles of poverty and discrimination. But there have always been examples of people “trapped” in this way who have emerged to great Wealth – with a capital “W.” (And I am NOT talking about drug lords.) What distinguishes such people? I strongly believe it is a deep down acceptance of personal responsibility, and the willingness to persist against outrageous odds. And all of us can learn a lesson from such courage and commitment.
If I accept the premise that “I am responsible,” I will look for ways to change my situation to the best of my abilities. If those initial efforts fail, I will not take the failure personally. I will accept the fact that my first effort did not succeed, and see if there is a way to improve that effort. Then I will take the lesson learned and try again. If again I don’t succeed, I learn what I can from that attempt, apply the learning to creating a new plan, and try again. And so on.
The key, mentioned in the last paragraph, is that a commitment to personal responsibility creates an absolute unwillingness to take anything that happens in life personally. This requires a radical change of thinking for most of us, and an unsavory willingness to pocket our Pride. Our Egos cause more suffering in this life, I believe, than any other single source. But if I am willing to let go of my pitiful, easily wounded Ego and just persevere at my humble practice of trial and error, I can endure mountains of discomfort without losing my resolve.
I cannot stress enough the power of this. If I am unwilling to take personally anything that happens to me, failure is impossible. I will either succeed, or learn a lesson – both are good. I either get closer to my goal, or get a chance to bring the awesome power of my God-given brain to the matter of how I can make my next attempt more successful. Such an approach to life cannot fail, particularly when it is accompanied by a mental conviction that it will succeed.
This is the true message of “The Secret” and the Law of Attraction, so often mischaracterized and mysticiized. Wealth will not magically materialize in front of me because I “envision” it. It comes from the absolute conviction that I will be Wealthy, and the guts and determination to keep trying until it happens.
James Arthur Ray, in that groundbreaking book Harmonic Wealth, puts it like this: “Discipline brings excellence, and excellence brings freedom.” That quote rocks my world. As I practice the humble process of trying, failing, and trying again, I learn the secret to true Wealth: If I want to be Wealthy, I must be a big enough person to sustain True Wealth. To do that, I must be willing to grow. And that, my friends, is where Spirit comes in.
In the next post I’ll talk about the nature of Spiritual Life, about some of the ways I have nurtured my Spirit over the last few years, how I’ve renewed my attention to this crucial dimension of life in the last few months, and describe in detail why I am convinced that all of this talk about Spirit is absolutely essential in the arena of Wealth-building.
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