Back To Work (for the time being... )

With a lot of time on my hands during our hospital stay, I did have a chance to contemplate this matter of 'Integral Work' some more. Being put in a position where I didn't have the comforts of home at hand, having few distractions, and several sleepless nights on a cot covered in one of those plastic mattress pads (I guess, just in case I peed the bed!) left me with a considerable amount of time for further thought on the matter. One of the initial things that struck me about 'Integral Work' was not that it would be easy and effortless, as much as that a truly 'Integral Vocation' would challenge one physically, mentally, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Perhaps it is owed to the ideals of my 2o's. Perhaps it was a misunderstanding of what 'following one's bliss,' ala Josepch Campbell, really consisted of. I guess I thought that finding the 'perfect job' like finding one's soul-mate (the perfect lover) would make everything easy as pie. Life, in other words would be effortless in both the bedroom and the boardroom.

I am not so naive now. Nor do I suspect that it would be beneficial to not be challenged. We--provided we are going to evolve, transform, grow, develop, mature... or whatever word-concept you happen to prefer as a stand-in for those terms--require challenging circumstances and conditions that call on us to extend our capacity. Yes, our capacity for creativity under fire. Yes, our capacity for calm under pressure. Yes, our capacity for insight at just the right time, in just the right way. Yes, our capacity in terms of the ability we have to do work that engages us in as many areas as possible.

To get a sense of what I am conveying here, recall a time when you laid your head down at night, prepared to go to sleep, and realized how you were both totally and completely spent, as well as deeply fulfilled. This is what 'Intergal Work' serves to accomplish: we are both spent and satisfied at every level of our Being. It is a contented exhaustion. We don't have anything more to give. We gave the world all we could that day. We know it. We don't go to bed unfufilled and discontented--nor do we need a drug or pharmaceutical to put us to sleep because we left a stone or two unturned and we know, i.e., our guilty conscience haunts us into restless fits of tossing and turning. We lay down at night with nothing held back either physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. We go to bed empty.