Do you get to work or have to work?

“Work is the very fire where we are baked to perfection, and like the master of the fire itself, we add the essential ingredient and fulfillment when we walk into the flames ourselves and fuel the transformation of ordinary, everyday forms into the exquisite and the rare.”

David Whyte: The Heart Aroused

This week I spoke at a leadership conference for Carilion Clinic in Roanoke, Virginia. One of the other speakers was Marcus Engel (you can learn more about Marcus and the I’m Here Movement at this link). After having been blinded and immobilized when the car in which he was riding was slammed into by a speeding drunk driver, Marcus spent six weeks in a hospital bed.

His favorite nurse, to whom his book I’m Here: Compassionate Communication in Patient Care is dedicated, first introduced herself by saying “I get to take care of you.” Not “I have to take care of you” – “I get to take care of you.” As in “it’s my privilege to take care of you.”

In his beautiful little book The Prophet Kahlil Gibran wrote that “work is love made visible.” He went on to say that if you can’t do your work with love, then you should just go beg for alms at the city gates.

Whether or not your own work is “love made visible” is largely determined by the attitude you take to work each day. Do you get to do your work, or do you have to do your work?

_____

And speaking of work, if you have not already done so please take ten seconds right now (seriously, that’s all it will take!) and answer this one very important question about your organization. It’s completely anonymous and I will share comparative results in an upcoming edition ofSpark Plug. Here’s the link:
Go to Question on Survey Monkey