Appreciating the Spaces of Work

 This evening, I did have a thought about appreciating the workplace, which stemmed from a very interesting conversation about what happens when people become aware of their death. Many people, when faced with the situation of their life ending, will stop thinking about their work. After all: one's profession is not an indispensable part of one's identity, and at the end of the day, what counts is thew way one treats people. However, I tend to feel that the workplace is a good space where a person practices how they connect with the world. When contextualized as a life activity, one's work does teach important lessons about life.
  To take a simple example: doing one's task to the best of one's ability often conflicts with the injunction to be "efficient" and speedy at work. I have often experienced within myself an conflict between wanting to do a job thoroughly and being constrained by time requirements or circumstances to limit one's time spent doing the job. We have a nickname for the kind of work that is expedient yet not attentive to completeness or quality, and that is "quick and dirty". Sometimes both approaches (slow and methodical/quick and dirty) are needed depending on the situation that arises, but what happens when a person cannot decide which approach is better? It ultimately depends on the situation at hand, but what it teaches me at work is how to hold conflicting commitments about different approaches to work. There isn't a single "right answer" to how to go about doing a job, but this conflict actually matures one's thinking by showing multiple options that are available to engage a task.
   Work, for me, is also a place of mental stability and anchoring. Knowing that I am needed tomorrow at my workplace gives me the opportunity to practice using mind to accomplish my tasks, and it also refines my being in the world. Had I never held a steady place of work since graduating, I may never have experienced the feelings that come with mastering certain processes or tasks. Having this anchor, like meditation, can become a very joyful experience if one is able to stop and appreciate the stability that work life affords.
  Work should never only be seen "literally" as a place where, say, certain goods and services are bought and sold. This is certainly the surface meaning of work, but unless one is unequivocally passionate about a certain product, they are not going to find this product to be the final meaning of work. The meaning of work, on the contrary, is often in the relationship I have toward myself, and how I cultivate that relationship to harmonize with others.