Sisyphus on Parole: Finding Meaning in Our Work

This post is an excerpt from my book “Thinking Aloud.” I am continually reminded of the challenges presented in this essay in the work I do with leaders and and in my own life and work. I hope you enjoy the essay – and perhaps introduce the questions below as a way to start conversations with your teammates. – CAW

Sisyphus on Parole: Finding Meaning in Our Work

We can learn a great deal from the Greek myth of Sisyphus about finding joy and meaning in the daily grind.

You might recall (or rush to Wikipedia to discover) that Sisyphus committed some very impressive acts of hubris – culminating in freeing humanity from death (if only briefly) and revealing Zeus (king of the Olympian Gods) for the sexual scoundrel that he was.[1]  Then Zeus exacted his revenge: Sisyphus was condemned to repeatedly push a boulder up a hill, reaching the top only to see the giant rock roll back down again.  Zeus conceived a terrible sentence for an extremely clever and creative human: eternal, pointless labor.

Greek myths are not the only ancient source for this observation.  The book of Exodus relates the tale of an angry Pharaoh punishing Israelite slaves with an act of caprice: ordering them to make the same quota of bricks with less straw to bind them.  Older slaves were required to do the heavy lifting, while younger, stronger slaves were limited to lighter duty.  Much more work, for the same amount of product.  The message: pointless labor is drudgery, demoralizing and dehumanizing.  The emblem of meaningless work is toil that is unnecessarily arduous, and ultimately unproductive.

It is sometimes easy to feel the way Sisyphus and the Israelites felt about our own work: meet your quota this year, and the quota for next year is increased.  The carrot recedes as we pursue it.  If we followed ancient gender roles, Sisyphus would have nothing on Mrs. Sisyphus: clean the kitchen, cook the meal, repeat.  Feed the baby, change the diaper….you get the picture.  It is all too easy to let the rhythms of life become a dirge, the music by which we trudge through our days.

What’s a mortal to do?

First, we can often choose to find meaning in our work and our tasks.  We may have more control over the tasks themselves than we recognize.  Even if we don’t, we can look to their underlying goals – or to the achievements of our teams and organizations – for inspiration.  We can also take justifiable pride in work well done and enjoy the benefits that we are creating for ourselves or others.  We can seek to understand the value our customers seek and strive to improve on it.  Striving is itself more satisfying than trudging.  Preparing meals and cleaning the kitchen can be acts of love, repeated often (some weeks more often than others), and far from meaningless.

Caring about what we do, and taking justified pride in a job well done, can be transformative. This isn’t mere misdirection, but a very real sort of magic: we change the nature of our work, by our insight and repeated acts of will.  Meaningful work is fulfilling, satisfying, even ennobling.  Even if you’ve never thought of it that way, I’ll bet you’ve experienced it.  I see it in myself, just as I see it in others.  One day I take great pleasure in communicating with others, another day my teaching is a chore.  One waiter really seems to enjoy serving people, exhibiting hospitality and participating in a satisfying meal.  Another simply can’t wait for his shift to end, and it shows.  The irony: whose shift seems longer?  We can’t always feel like creative geniuses, but we can strive to do great work and take pride in the effort, as well as the achievement.

More important, we shouldn’t have to work that magic alone.  As friends, teammates, and leaders, we can come together to build meaning into our work, and to take pride in our accomplishments.  If we want to work for an organization that we can feel proud of, we need to lead the way in building that sort of an organization.  We can seek to know and understand how our work impacts others, and we can share that understanding with the people with whom we share our work.

Do the team members you lead know how their tasks fit into the broader projects, processes or products that they produce?  Do they know how their work benefits customers, or contributes to the firm’s success?  Or, do you just insist that the rocks keep rolling?  These are messages that need to be repeated: not quarterly or weekly, but constantly.  You cannot over-communicate where making meaning is concerned.

By building a sense of meaning and purpose into the work that you share, you demonstrate respect for your team members as human beings.  You also empower them to join you in the pursuit of greatness.

Conversation Starters: 

Finding and maintaining a meaningful sense of purpose in our work is essential for maintaining our own productivity, as well as our quality of life.  Helping others do so is a key function of effective leaders.

• Have you ever experienced a “Sisyphean crisis,” where all of your work felt pointless and endless? What did you do to climb out of it?
• What can you do to help others who are stuck?
• How do you celebrate the purpose in your work?

At Ethical Leaders in Action we believe that most, if not all people, can develop themselves to play leadership roles in many different spheres both large and small. The foundation of this development process is a short but powerful list of virtues which can be developed and improved through conscious effort. For more information feel free to take the Virtues of Ethical Leadership Self Inventory (VELSI) which breaks these virtues down into features that can be individually developed. The results of the VELSI come with a quick reference guide to help you understand how the virtues and their individual features fit together. https://ethinact.com/velsi/

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