One of the reasons I left my corporate job was that I felt increasingly disconnected.
As the years went by, I simply couldn’t get on board with the idea that the ultimate purpose of my work was to make more profit for the organisation. That what was valued, above all, was efficiency, optimisation, productivity.
These are things that I value too, and that I can do. But as I became a manager and learnt to navigate the web of processes and systems in the organisation, I was faced with situation after situation in which what I felt instinctively was ‘right’ wasn’t the prescribed option. My approach to changing the culture from within wasn’t effective. Drained and depleted, I left.
A few months later, commenting on one of my posts, another classmate from the altMBA introduced me to Parker Palmer’s deeply moving work on the undivided life:
Sadly, most of us learn early on that it’s not safe to be in the world as who we really are with what we truly value and believe. […]
But then there comes a point in life when that divided life, that gap between who we really are and the face we put on for the larger world, becomes painful. […]
We have to find some way to try to close that gap. To build a bridge between our own identity and integrity as adults, and the work that we do in the world [so that] not only will we become more fulfilled in the work we do, but we’re much more likely to serve the people we want to serve better.
I was reminded of this several weeks later, reading Melinda Gates’ succinct advice to today’s young women:
Seek out people and environments that empower you to be nothing but yourself.
What does living an undivided life mean for you?