40 Hours

40 hours a week, I am at my place of employment.

Its a solid job, with decent pay, good benefits, and advancement opportunities down the road.

It was a huge answer to prayer, as I didn’t have work when we first moved to Texas, and it took me almost 5 months to get this job.

Before this job…well, I had to take what I could get, and it was a terrible job, with terrible management, and was a constant source of stress and tension. 

So now I have this good thing. I should be happy, right? 

But I’m really not. I’m not stressed out. I know I can work this job for awhile without any real issues.

And as I posted earlier, one can always find meaning in the small things, the every day pieces of life that we so often pass by. But does that mean we can’t aim for 40 hours a week of greater meaning? Is it too much to ask for a profession – a career – a job – that might mean something behind 40 hours a week and my paycheck. 

Doing my job well – that is meaningful. But it does not imbue the work itself into something of meaning. 

Choosing to live intentionally and make my own choices and actions be something of value…can that compensate for a job that does not have very much value and/or meaning in and of itself?

Take, for instance, parenting. There are a lot of not so glamorous parts of parenting, and the day in and day out can seem pretty monotonous. You can choose to be intentional and make those moments special…and at the end of the day (or year, or 18 years) you are also doing something with a wider, greater, meaning that adds to the small, little moments of value and meaning.

But what if your job is such that no matter how meaningfully you live the small moments, there is no greater good at the finish line?

That’s the struggle, my friends.

What then?