A Key Suggestion to Improve Your Work Life
Some companies encourage their employees to make suggestions to improve business results and/or the working environment. Today's suggestion: Forget yourself.
As you know, we're always looking for ways to sanctify our work. We might consider forgetting yourself a kind of necessary precondition. Since sanctifying our work involves performing our daily work for the greater glory of God, rather than our own personal glory, you can see the importance of forgetting ourselves as we go about our business.
Last time we posted a kind of starter kit to help us maintain and build on any progress we made in our spiritual lives during Lent, applying it specifically to our work. As part of that starter kit, we strongly recommended the following:
Starting to see how "forget yourself and think of others" will help you sanctify your work?
To direct your attention to God during work doesn't require constantly thinking of Him exclusively. We simply begin our work day with the intention of working for His greater glory. We offer all our efforts to Him. Develop the habit of doing so before you begin the day's labor and you're halfway there. The other half would be the occasional direction of your attention to Him in simple aspirations throughout the day: "My Jesus, I love You...All for You..." Use whatever phrase or phrases come naturally to you.
To direct your attention to others also requires developing certain habits. Develop those that come naturally to you. You don't need or want to force yourself on others. Maybe you start with a smile or cheerful word from time to time. Maybe a simple "How are you today?" Or you notice something about a colleague or customer or even your boss that could naturally elicit a compliment. We're not talking about ingratiating yourself to others or being obsequious to the boss here. Quite the opposite. Ingratiating yourself and being obsequious are self-focused. You're looking to "get something" out of the interaction. That's not charity.
If you're naturally disposed to be cheerful or make passing pleasant comments to others, you've got a head start here. For the rest of us, though, this may take some work. But many good things do require effort, sometimes extraordinary effort. And with the understanding of why it's important to forget self and think of others, you should at least find the motivation necessary to spur your efforts.
One more thought to motivate us here. Did you notice how our discussion today springs from the "two great commandments": Love God. Love your neighbor as yourself? In forgetting ourselves and thinking of others (God and other people), we fulfill those commandments. And in applying ourselves to this in the work place, we can bathe in a stream of grace that will naturally flow as result of our efforts.
No matter what challenges you encounter today, wouldn't today's suggestion improve your work life?
As you know, we're always looking for ways to sanctify our work. We might consider forgetting yourself a kind of necessary precondition. Since sanctifying our work involves performing our daily work for the greater glory of God, rather than our own personal glory, you can see the importance of forgetting ourselves as we go about our business.
Last time we posted a kind of starter kit to help us maintain and build on any progress we made in our spiritual lives during Lent, applying it specifically to our work. As part of that starter kit, we strongly recommended the following:
...charity in our dealing with others. For example, we can bite our tongue when tempted to say something nasty about someone; be pleasant and cheerful even if you're not feeling particularly great that day; give time to someone in need; in general, forget yourself and think of others.Notice the addition to "forget yourself": Think of others. They go hand in hand. When you think about it, you can't just forget yourself. Our attention seeks an object. It's similar to Aristotle's "nature abhors a vacuum." He based this on the observation that nature requires that every space be filled with something, even if that something is simply odorless, colorless air. So too our attention requires an object. And if we're going to "forget self," that object would naturally be what is "other than self." (Ah, my college major in philosophy!) And that "other than self" consists of two objects: God and others.
Starting to see how "forget yourself and think of others" will help you sanctify your work?
To direct your attention to God during work doesn't require constantly thinking of Him exclusively. We simply begin our work day with the intention of working for His greater glory. We offer all our efforts to Him. Develop the habit of doing so before you begin the day's labor and you're halfway there. The other half would be the occasional direction of your attention to Him in simple aspirations throughout the day: "My Jesus, I love You...All for You..." Use whatever phrase or phrases come naturally to you.
To direct your attention to others also requires developing certain habits. Develop those that come naturally to you. You don't need or want to force yourself on others. Maybe you start with a smile or cheerful word from time to time. Maybe a simple "How are you today?" Or you notice something about a colleague or customer or even your boss that could naturally elicit a compliment. We're not talking about ingratiating yourself to others or being obsequious to the boss here. Quite the opposite. Ingratiating yourself and being obsequious are self-focused. You're looking to "get something" out of the interaction. That's not charity.
If you're naturally disposed to be cheerful or make passing pleasant comments to others, you've got a head start here. For the rest of us, though, this may take some work. But many good things do require effort, sometimes extraordinary effort. And with the understanding of why it's important to forget self and think of others, you should at least find the motivation necessary to spur your efforts.
One more thought to motivate us here. Did you notice how our discussion today springs from the "two great commandments": Love God. Love your neighbor as yourself? In forgetting ourselves and thinking of others (God and other people), we fulfill those commandments. And in applying ourselves to this in the work place, we can bathe in a stream of grace that will naturally flow as result of our efforts.
No matter what challenges you encounter today, wouldn't today's suggestion improve your work life?
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