Questions and Answers
There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life. There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: ‘He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.’
from “Man’s Search For Meaning” by Viktor Frankl
It's been over eight months since I started with my first job last January 2 and four months since I passed the Philippine Bar. In the rare chances that I get to chat with friends, both old and new, over coffee, or perhaps even dinner, as we marvel at how fast the past months have quickly sped by, we find ourselves inevitably drifting towards that “overwhelming question”: “So, are you happy with your work?”
Sitting here on a Friday evening, after most everyone in the office has already left and I waiting only for the traffic to lighten outside (with nowhere to go but home on this tired Friday night), I guess I can honestly answer that question with a sincere “yes”. But it is a "yes" that is at once certain and qualified, as happiness is, after all, often just a question of degrees.
I am now suddenly reminded of a YM conversation with a fellow batchmate from the University of the Philippines working in an Intellectual Property Firm in Ortigas. I reproduce from the archive a portion of that conversation:
mka0124 (1/26/2006 11:56:16 AM): r u enjoying work?
peej_bernardo (1/26/2006 11:56:53 AM): Define enjoying? If you mean, enjoying like, I'm jumping up and down, I'm in Boracay, or holding hands with a person I really care about, then of course not!You know what I realized? I realized that I don't think my work will ever define me. I mean, I think the best description for it is: I don't think I'll take it too serious, as perhaps I did with my studies, or some *other* stuff. I mean, I'll do my best, I'll turn in the required pleading, but at the end of the day, it's not what I live my life for. And until I find that something or someone to live that life for, I don't think I truly will consider myself *enjoying.*
mka0124(1/26/2006 12:18:12 PM): Thanks for concretizing what I am experiencing rin. . . looking for something more, feeling restless. . . .
I think the reply captures precisely the sentiment I feel at the closing of my first month of work. While I really do not have anything to complain about— work, so far, has been pleasantly exciting— it is, strangely enough, somewhat empty and purposeless. Departing from the initial satisfaction of job well done and the exhilaration of a challenge adequately addressed, the futility of the endeavor cannot but stare back at me from the burdened page: what the hell am I doing all of these things for?
I guess it is a uniquely human yearning, this want of trying to find meaning behind things: why we do what we do, why we are where we are. After all, they say that the most difficult question to answer is not the who, what, or when, but the why. The question forces us to look deeper into things, and sometimes, looking deeper, we do not like what we eventually get to find.
This rather impassive attitude towards work, however, did not surprise me at all, because I knew that while I was driven enough to fulfill whatever tasks I had to do in the best way I knew how, I had nothing more to prove. Not that I had achieved anything great or even noteworthy— no, in all humility, no. Rather, it is probably because I know that somehow, someway, I have made something of myself at age twenty-seven. But ever the restless soul that I am, something remains to be missing. Something remains to be done. More than a nagging emptiness, it's really an impatience with the universe to finally reveal to me: what's this all about? [What was it that Coelho wrote? “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”]
Yes, yes, I know that this is but another manifestation of the creeping daily realization that one life has indeed irretrievably ended, and that another, perhaps more uncertain one, has irrevocably begun. Indeed, the rest of my life has gotten me caught up in everyday “matters of consequence,” that I am left dumbstruck at how the minutes and the hours and the days have gone by so quickly, without me having the chance to quite understand any of it, without me having the chance to find any meaning in it. And as of yet, I am still struggling.
Will I even ever find it?
So I trudge off to my daily routine that is both comforting and oppressive, swept up in the adrenalin of court appearances and client calls, but in the silence of the end of the day, still somewhat diminished by the seeming insignificance of the whole exercise. Indeed, I now understand how numbness can be a refuge to many of those condemned to the work-a-day-world, and it is something that I useful in getting through the day. Indeed, I tell myself: Do not yield to the disillusionment. Have faith, this will have a point. Indeed, whether or not it is clear to me or not, “no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.” As Rilke wrote [those epochal words constantly repeated by the lost and the hopeful]:
Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves . . . . Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then, gradually, without noticing it, living along some distant day into the answers.
[What was it that Coelho wrote? “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”]
---my favorite line of all time. :) it's something i try to live by, without forgetting that one has to be deserving of what he desires before it is given to him. :) i should be studying now. :D wish me luck!
Posted by
M |
8:56 AM
I mean, I'll do my best, I'll turn in the required pleading, but at the end of the day, it's not what I live my life for. And until I find that something or someone to live that life for, I don't think I truly will consider myself *enjoying.*
- geez, peej. that was so..."in-your-face." it's not what i live for either, but how do we find that something or someone to live our lives for when we're busy turning in the required pleading? la lang... just asking...
Posted by
Anonymous |
4:39 AM
~~~So I trudge off to my daily routine that is both comforting and oppressive, swept up in the adrenalin of court appearances and client calls, but in the silence of the end of the day, still somewhat diminished by the seeming insignificance of the whole exercise. Indeed, I now understand how numbness can be a refuge to many of those condemned to the work-a-day-world, and it is something that I useful in getting through the day.~~~
my sentiments exactly. =)
boy am i glad, di pala ako nag-iisa. =P i don't know though if this has something to do with stress or discontent or sheer boredom. whatever it is, may that elusive 'why' be fin'lly discovered. =)
Posted by
TiN |
2:03 PM
we share exactly the same sentiment. i have long decided that work could never be my life and i will never give up the more important personal things in my life for it. work is only a means to make use of the talents given me for God's glory and to provide a good life for a family, both of which are my greater purpose in life. if you think of it that way, you will be more at peace with the way your life is going, no more questions, no more why's.
and you quote from one of my favorite books too...
you write great!
Posted by
Anonymous |
11:21 PM
Been ages since I last visited the blog world, and for the past few hours, I found myself overdosing on a few sites. This entry of yours in particular sure knows how to rock ones mind back into some sense. :) See you around man!
Posted by
Anonymous |
8:43 PM