Probably the most frustrating workplace irony for many
of us is how we relentlessly pursue success but never
seem to arrive at being successful. Of course,
there are millions of successful people--Nobel Prize
winners, college graduates, loving parents. But
for a variety of reasons, so many of us do not feel
successful even when we achieve much of what we are
striving for. Particularly at work, we can find
ourselves searching for wealth, recognition, and
accomplishment, yet year in and year out, no matter
how much we achieve, there's still something that
seems to elude our grasp. The famed Greek
fabulist Aesop shed some light on this dilemma more
than twenty-six hundred years ago in a short tale
entitled, "A Farmer and His Children":
A farmer, at death's door, wishing to impart to his
children an important secret, called them to his
deathbed and said, "My children, I am about to
die. I would have you know, therefore, that our
vineyard contains a hidden treasure--a treasure I have
cherished all my life. Dig and you, too, will
find it."
When their father died, the children took spade and
pitchfork and turned the soil of the vineyard over and
over again in their search for the treasure, which
they were told lay hidden in the vineyard.
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For
weeks and weeks, they toiled, breathlessly searching
every inch of the land. Finally, the children
ended their search in frustration, for they had found
no treasure. But to their surprise, the vines,
after so much thorough digging, produced a bountiful,
lush crop of grapes such as had never been seen
before.
Like the farmer's children, we are all, in one way or
another, looking for treasure at work: the
promotion, new assignment, salary increase,
recognition, big bonus. At times, it's as if we
sense that work holds the winning number to life's
lottery, and each day we toil in hopes of hitting the
jackpot.
Yet like the farmer's children, most of us come up
empty-handed. At times, work's disappointments
can feel like a cruel joke. No matter how hard
we work, no matter how much success we achieve, no
matter how secure or celebrated we feel, it never
seems enough. We work the fields of our jobs
each day in search of treasure, and too often we come
home feeling unfulfilled, frustrated, and weary.
But Aesop's tale reveals a profound spiritual irony to
our frustration: in mistakenly searching for a
treasure that does not exist, we overlook the good
fortune being cultivated right within our grasp.
Like the farmer's children, we rush to get somewhere
else--to become more secure or more successful or more
wealthy--and in our rush, we overlook where we
are: we fail to notice that a great and
bountiful harvest is unfolding as we work.
In so many respects, Aesop's tale reveals one of the
great workplace contradictions that we face each
day: "success" tells us to hurry
up, find the treasure, get to the goal, whereas
"work" tells us to slow down, attend to the
details, appreciate what is needed. And the
task of trying to achieve both often feels impossible.
According to Aesop's tale, the "success"
that we are rushing to grasp does not, in fact,
exist: misunderstanding the situation, we find
ourselves chasing false hopes. The so-called
treasure that lies hidden in the vineyard is nothing
other than the vineyard itself, yet mistakenly, we
find ourselves desiring more wealth, more prestige--a
treasure that will change our lives, solve all our
problems, and free us from our toil. But such
treasure--such success--does not exist.
Luckily, although there is no treasure, there is a
bounty to be found in the very act of our labor
itself. If the farmer's children had realized
this, their breathless turning of the soil need not
have been so frenzied, for they rushed past the actual
experience their father had so cherished--they missed
the joy of their labor.
Of course, we could say that the farmer's children
would never have tilled the soil so vigorously unless
they were searching for a treasure. But such a
cynical approach to work is unnecessary. We need
not lie to ourselves and chase after false hopes in
order to be productive. We can care for our
vineyard thoroughly and properly without the
frustration of pursuing false hopes. We need not
see ourselves as circus monkeys who perform only when
tempted with enticements and charades. . . .
For the mindful leader, then, Aesop's challenge is to
fully appreciate where we are at work and abandon our
rush to get somewhere else that we hope will be more
secure, more successful, or more amazing. And in
so doing, we may discover a confident joy in our
labor--a bounty that may open us up to our workplace
and save us from the painful irony of chasing false
hopes.
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