How to Find Fulfilling Work: The School of Life

A helpful way to think about this is that we are caught between two forms of regret. On the one hand, the regret of abandoning a career into which we’ve put years of time, energy and emotion. And on the other, the possibility of looking back on our lives in old age and regretting that we didn’t leave a job that was not offering us fulfilment. So wh

In his book Good Work, the visionary economic thinker E.F. Schumacher lyrically describes the ‘longing for freedom’ that has become so widespread in Western society. This desire, he says, encapsulates a range of liberating ideas:

One of the best ways to escape the confines of our worldview is to shift our peer group and talk to people whose work experiences and daily lives are very different from our own.

haranguing

the ancient Greeks’ aspiration to perform some virtuous and noble deed that would give their lives a sense of purpose and ensure their immortality in historical memory.

Leonardo da Vinci called a discepolo di esperienza, a disciple of experience.

the ancient Greek ideal of eudaimonia or ‘the good life’.

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labour and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To hims

We must adopt Leonardo da Vinci’s adventurous credo, ‘experience will be my mistress’.