Being Nothing and Doing Everything at Work

In this last week of August, we focus on being nothing and doing everything at work. Why? Doesn't it seem a bit of a stark contrast - being nothing but doing everything? And not just a contrast, but even a kind of jumble of seemingly conflicting ideas that's not so easy to unravel. But unravel we shall!

Let's start with being nothing. 

If we look ahead to this Sunday's post, we'll find this comment: Bury yourself profoundly in the abyss of your nothingness. It gets even better after that.

The thing is, we really need to do this. As Catholics we should know all about our nothingness. Once we recognize God almighty and infinite, we can't but help but know this. Among the many ideas that have attempted to teach us this fundamental truth posits us is a drop of water in an ocean. 

A drop of water in the ocean: In that sense we are nothing, a way to understand our nothingness.

Okay, but this isn't a course in theology or religion. Our focus is Catholic men at work. So how do we incorporate this idea of nothingness into our work? After all, even if we understand this fundamental truth, do we really want to go around the workplace thinking of ourselves as "nothing"? The quick and short answer is "Yes."

Now, to be clear, it's important to recognize that the sort of "nothing" we're talking about doesn't mean we don't use our skills and experience to perform the job at hand the best work we can. Our nothingness primarily resides inside us. 

We have long commented on and promoted reading the Rule of St. Benedict - a rule written for monks who live in community in a monastery. St. Benedict advises his monks, knowing their nothingness, to walk about eyes cast down. While we can learn much from the Rule that will help us both spiritually and practically in our work, casting our eyes down all the time isn't necessarily appropriate for us non-monks. We live not within the walls of a monastery but in the world "outside." Depending upon our particular work, we may be called to engage with others directly. Eyes cast down are not really conducive to this.

But if our nothingness does indeed reside inside us, we can't just let it sink in and lie there dormant. We need to cultivate our nothingness, to let it first inform our soul, then all our thoughts, words, and deeds.

How than does our nothingness manifest itself in our work? We can offer a few suggestions and examples.

If we work primarily on our own, it will manifest primarily in our thoughts. For example working from home, running a small professional practice can mean big blocks of time devoted to reading, research, writing, etc. In our nothingness, we pursue these solitary activities in a spirit of penance, especially when our work is particularly difficult or tedious. Rather than murmur, knowing we are sinners, we can immediately offer up our difficulties. And we can know that God - through Whose Will all things unfold - has provided this difficulty as a means for us to turn to Him, to rely on Him, to trust in Him that He will grant us the Light to see our way to the result we need to serve our clients. A happy result is His Work, performed by our hands. He gets the credit.

If we recognize that we are nothing and He is Everything, this isn't so hard to do. And when we do have occasion to speak with or meet with clients, our language and behavior will reflect our interior disposition. We will do so in a spirit of service, with no hint of our own brilliance or any manifestation of self-importance. We can better focus on our client, knowing that God is the real author of any helpful analysis or any helpful solution to a problem we have concocted.

And if we actively work with others present, we can indeed manifest our nothingness without casting our eyes down. With the secure knowledge that all the good we do comes from God, all our thoughts, and hence our language and behavior will reflect this. Having worked for and with a fair share of ego-driven, puffed up bosses and colleagues, all it takes is a glance at them to keep us reined in if we have that tendency.

None of this will hold us back in advancing in our careers - if that's part of your plan of life. But it does put a lid on unbridled ambition. And if we're the sort who are content to work in simple service jobs without any special ambition to become the head honcho, so much the better. We can simply focus on doing the best job we can without the distractions of advancing our career by climbing some sort of corporate ladder.

The key is knowing our nothingness, in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in our work.

But with this deep abiding sense of our nothingness, we still need to figure out what it means to "do everything" at work. Next time...