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On the Path to Right Livelihood
by Bobbye Middendorf
Right Livelihood: It’s one of the steps along the Buddhist eight-fold
path. It has also become a code in contemporary circles for earning one’s
daily bread out of doing work that is “right.” How does one achieve it?
Where does one find it?
Numerous books purportedly guide people
along this path. Resources recommended during my talks with eleven career
experts are Bolles’ What Color Is Your Parachute?, Marsha Sinetar’s
Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow, Julia Cameron’s The
Artist’s Way, and all of the books by Barbara Sher (including her
latest, Live the Life You Love), Tom Jackson and William Bridges.
Recently Paul and Sarah Edwards, “the work-at-home gurus” have come up
with an entrepreneurially focused career book, Finding Your Perfect
Work. According to the Edwards, “In the future, most of us must create
our own livelihoods based on our personal choices about the kind of life
we want to live.”
Life and work are inextricably linked. More and
more people are choosing work that reflects the whole of their person; and
are disenchanted sooner than ever with work that misses this connection.
It is truly the crisis/opportunity of our times.
Defining the
Territory-What is Right Livelihood?
The most extensive definition
was outlined by Marti Beddoe, founder of Right Livelyhoods. She detailed
how each step of the eightfold Buddhist path, “the middle way,” could
actually be related to the working life. “Right Livelihood means to avoid
any life that brings shame. It embodies the other seven steps along the
eightfold path to enlightenment: Right Thought involves love and devotion
through work. Right Mindfulness means consciously choosing your path and
your work. Right Understanding evolves from consciously choosing work that
is the best of ourselves and having knowledge of our values. Right Speech
implies compassion relating to others through our work. Right
Concentration means doing work with care and intense awareness and love.
Right Action implies doing your work and having no attachment to the
results. Right Effort is about choosing work you can do a whole life,
keeping yourself in a state of constant learning and beginner’s mind. The
bottom line is this: work that embodies love, devotion, and service is as
much an attitude as the actions we take.”
Robin Sheerer, founder
of Career Enterprises Incorporated ("Where work and heart meet")
characterizes right livelihood as “a sense of ease in work and life, where
one isn’t caught in an internal conflict... Because when people are at
peace about it, it frees energies to be more concentrated, more
productive, more focused, and happiest.” Part of right livelihood,
according to Sheerer, “is in designing your work and life so that you’re
growing throughout your lifetime.”
Peter LeBrun holds right
livelihood as an ideal, “living in a totally authentic way, with no
separation between work life and personal life, going after what you’re
most passionate about. It is also embedded in the idea of vocational
wholeness. To move toward the ideal is the work of a lifetime.”
Diane Wilson, principal in the firm Grimard Wilson Consulting, has
trained with Richard Bolles. She considers the work she does life career
planning. “I help people look at the broadest picture of their lives.
We’ve been square pegs in round holes. I create a safe arena for people to
look at what they’ve tucked away...to help people find work that fits
their purpose, skills and life mission; to narrow the gap between what
they dream versus what they do. Or at least to help them see the steps —
see gifts and help bring them forward.”
Jean Davis, an
Evanston-based psychotherapist who specializes in adult career
transitions, noted that the most productive work represents an extension
of what she termed “the authentic self: all the original material is
there...but laid over with someone else’s nightmare.... We’ve gotten
distracted from the authentic self.” Davis aims to “help people engage in
the process of discovery to reclaim the authentic self.”
Arlene
Hirsch, a local career consultant and author of Love Your Work and
Success Will Follow, suggests being practical about the things you
love. Her favorite definition of the territory comes from Aristotle: “You
would find your vocation where your talents meet opportunity.” Hirsch
emphasizes the importance of integrating financial needs along with what
matters most. “Choose something you love, then develop practical skills
about how to make money.”
Idene Goldman of VisionWorks has a
program specifically titled “Life and Livelihood,” designed to
“synchronize what you do in life with who you are inside. Documenting and
applying values, strengths, mission, vision.” Goldman, calling it “aligned
livelihood,” emphasizes the congruence and harmoniousness “when you feel
aligned. We are answered by life when we put out clear messages of who we
are and we get back what we need.” Alignment for Goldman “is where what we
do is an expression of who we are inside out.”
Advice and
Insights from the Experts
“My job,” says Goldman, “is to get people
to fall in love with themselves. I call it‘inner education.’ First, people
need to take the time to be quiet and discriminate between shoulds versus
urges. Second, care about yourself enough to listen to yourself. Third,
embrace your present job. It’s the backdrop and stage setting for your
growth as an individual. Choose to get all you can out of a situation. And
if you need help listening to yourself, get help. We need a mirror to see
ourselves inside too.”
Former Chicagoan Elke Siller Macartney, a
counselor now based in LaConner, Washington, has been helping people in
their search for true work for nearly two decades. Her book, Be
YourSelf Boldly, offers 23 succinct lessons that encompass the
elements necessary to achieving right livelihood, including such concepts
as integrity, abundance, and purpose.
“First and most important is
developing clarity of vision, a vision of what makes your heart sing.
Second, synchronicity plays a big part. If the vision is clear,
synchronicity can take over. Third, you must have a high sense of
integrity, and always tell yourself the truth. Fourth, allow yourself
flexibility.”
LeBrun advises that you “stay true to your own
internal sense about what you can be excited about. Success is having a
clear idea of where you want to go and moving toward it as quickly or as
slowly as you need. The hardest thing to do is keep up the momentum.” To
that end, LeBrun offers the following ideas: “Have an ongoing support
group for career change. Stay in touch with your coach. Write in a
journal. Work with a mentor. Make a commitment with a close friend to make
the changes you’ve decided on. Maintain balance in your life.” He adds,
“What it boils down to is the little steps you take each day. Be willing
to stick in there, even when the going gets rough.”
Lansky’s
advice is that focus is extremely important. People come to her when they
don’t know what they want to do, when they need to define direction. And
after defining that focus, effective marketing is critical — resumes,
letters, selling yourself in an interview. “Don’t expect people to figure
out what your transferable skills are.” She adds, “Tell the truth for
where you are now.... Tell the truth about who you are, what you want to
do, the time you want to give. Realize it’s not forever.”
Rosita
Rodriguez, a human resources professional and founder of Arche
International, a meditation center in Oak Park, observes, “If people are
faced with a choice that they know upfront won’t be satisfactory, then
they shouldn’t do it.” Building from the Buddhist definition, she
elaborates, “Only look for those things that bring peace. Do not be out of
harmony with who you are. When faced with a situation, always ask,‘Will
this help or hinder my spiritual growth?’”
Sheerer says, “Slow
down enough to figure it out. Become an astute observer of yourself.” If
self reflective exercises and time alone don’t work for you, Sheerer
recommends seeking out someone who is trained to listen. Sheerer, like
many of her colleagues, recommends creating a support group.
According to Wilson, “people need to be anchored in who they are,
so someone else can’t come in and tell them what to do. I help people in a
very holistic and individualized way, especially helping them find their
intuition and honor it. This sense of higher purpose is crucial. This
makes everything else work.”
When Davis works with clients, she
offers highly individualized suggestions, often specific books,
literature, films, or art exhibits. Davis has pioneered such work using
aesthetic resources as “nutrients and stimulants” for clients. With a
Ph.D. in English, Davis draws on a vast resource of literary
understanding, recommending the kinds of books and stories that help
clients get at what’s hidden or suppressed. She has come to see clusters
of universal themes that adults address. Davis often recommends Paulo
Coelho’s The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream. “Almost
everyone who comes in says,‘I don’t have a clue.’ In doing the work, the
clues appear, because they’re always there.”
Beddoe affirms the
importance of introspection, reading, and creating a support network. She
also recommends talking to at least 20 people in a given field of
interest. She adds, “If you hire a coach, make sure they walk their talk.
Get rid of the either/or thinking that leads to the old excuse,‘You can
either do right livelihood or earn a living.’ Look for
both/and.“ Beddoe also recommends getting a financial advisor,
someone who understands the right livelihood process and is supportive to
help you figure out your finances.
Success Stories
From
ad space salespeople who become healers; from corporate executives who
start educational storytelling practices or become teachers or start a
cleaning business: Collectively, there are hundreds of stories of
successful transitions, some dramatic and some less so. As Wilson
commented, “It’s fascinating, exciting and fun [to help people] take
inventory and make an examined choice about careers.”
LeBrun, who
works with people with serious health problems, including HIV, AIDS,
cancer, and MS, acknowledged the tremendous success stories of these
individuals willing to address living their lives, even as they
encounter health struggles. He also noted that everyone succeeds and
progresses at their own pace. Stories of dramatic change can sometimes be
discouraging to people who are taking a more evolutionary path.
Sheerer shared her tale of the client with a passion for British
tea service, about which Sheerer herself admitted feeling, “Well, what are
we going to do with this?” For a year, the client systematically searched
for opportunities that would tap into her passion. Finally realizing she
wanted to work for herself, she is on her way — building a business around
cooking, catering, and of course, tea.
Lansky feels most proud of
the new small businesses and entrepreneurial ventures she’s spawned.
Several of these experts offer marketing coaching and other
entrepreneurial resources and feedback for clients who make the move to
create their own companies.
What Trends Are You
Seeing?
Davis acknowledges a “fluid marketplace,” while Goldman
indicates that, “The economy is making people look at downsizing, and
allows them to choose self-discovery.” Nearly everyone noted that they see
people who are tired, who will no longer compromise. Many individuals are
seeking deeper meaning in their work and congruence between their work
life and the rest of their lives. Many noted the migration to smaller
businesses, the growth of entrepreneurial ventures and the trend toward
people taking responsibility for running their careers just as though they
were small businesses.
Sheerer sees more people taking time out
via sabbaticals. Many who do so ultimately do not return to the same job.
They become aware that they are seeking, “satisfying work and a
whole life; People are willing to have fewer material goods. They want
more time.”
Others observe that people can also succeed in
“growing where they’re planted.” Macartney suggests, “People are
rediscovering service to the world, and they are discovering they can
enact that service in whatever context they find themselves in. People are
discovering ways of being a healer while being a computer programmer,
within their own particular situation.”
Also, for those still in a
company, one of the most interesting trends observed by Rodriguez is the
number of corporations that now offer some kind of meditative activity to
their employees. Rodriguez is currently writing up several studies that
show statistically significant decreases in employee absenteeism, improved
concentration, lowered insurance rates, and quantifiable bottom line
results for those companies offering such programs.
Lansky, who
recently relocated to the West coast, reports that there are significantly
different issues that come up in Portland versus the kind of work and
clients she saw in Chicago. “People in Portland are really operating on a
deeper spiritual level that I wasn’t seeing in Chicago. On the other hand,
there’s less out here about the nuts and bolts of how you find a job.”
The process to identify and build a life that truly reflects
your right livelihood is available. Those who make their livelihood
by helping others achieve theirs are truly an extraordinary group. As
Beddoe points out, “If you’re in the spirit of right livelihood, you know
this moment is the right moment.”
Bobbye Middendorf is a writer
and artist living in Chicago.
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