Life rolls along with a quiet ferocity that can lull one into normalizing intermittent calamities and ongoing emergencies alike. Maybe this is part of developing a coping mechanism, to fall into a routine that accommodates ruptures that could be more jarring, even ones that might have been delivered precisely in order to jolt us from complacency to action. How many unprecedented events does it take to prompt a restructuring of lives and societies? Or is the pull of daily rationalization a stronger force?

I raise this in somewhat vague terms, since everyone’s journey will be unique when it comes to the specific challenges faced and the particular reasons why we might continue to go along to get along. Yet in many of our lives there is a shared dimension of family-job-bills-health-etc. that sets the baseline for holding on and forging ahead. Likewise, at scale, there is a growing recognition of common concerns over issues including war and violence, inequality and injustice, climate and resources, and affordability.

All of this is to say that whatever your version of any of these factors might be, you’re not in this alone. I know it can often feel that way, living in societies that tend to individualize burdens while making it unfashionable or even untenable to broach our struggles with colleagues and even sometimes friends. We learn to keep it inside, or at least to let it out in small doses (with jocularity at times), passing on the opportunity to actually answer the question, How’s it going? Comportment often trumps complaint.

So no complaints here! Indeed, it’s a total cliché but nonetheless true that on some level, it’s all good. We can and should have a healthy dose of gratitude for this life, for all of it—the trials and triumphs alike. If we take the view that we’re here to have an experience, maybe even to learn something, then the good and the bad and everything in between are all our tour guides or teachers, as the case may be. We can’t hope to grasp joy and love and peace and accomplishment without their counterparts as well.

For what it’s worth, in my world the only thing that truly helps to assimilate all of this into something that moves beyond mere coping to a place of connection is the simple act of getting back to work. By this, I don’t mean “work” as in alienation of one’s labor or the strategic acquisition of wealth, and I certainly am not referring to anything like “arbeit macht frei” with its warped historical overtones nor even some version of a Protestant work ethic that expects us to be pulled up by tenuous bootstraps.

No, I’m nodding to something more transcendent than all of that, more intentional and impactful. This kind of work is about manifesting our purpose, making a contribution, supporting those we care about, creatively turning woe into wonder, adding our voice to the discourse, making beauty and meaning, random acts of kindness, uncredited interventions and notable accomplishments alike, pushing through inertia and barriers, speaking our mind with conviction, going the extra mile, doing the impossible….

the good and the bad and everything in between are all our tour guides or teachers…

To be clear, none of this implies that work of this sort needs to be at a monumental scale to be effective at keeping one grounded despite life’s inevitable perturbations both close-in and writ large. It can be as simple as cleaning the kitchen before anyone else even wakes up or sprucing up the kids’ rooms while they’re at school—with examples like this usually not bringing any overt recognition whatsoever. It can be something more tangible like finally cleaning out the garage, painting the fence, planting the garden.

Beyond physical work, there’s also the realm of emotional and intellectual pursuits. Starting that meditation class, picking up the old guitar, writing that letter or journal entry or essay, suspending disbelief long enough to really laugh or cry, calling a faraway friend. At the collective scale, there’s showing up to volunteer, helping a neighbor, raising one’s voice for a cause, supporting local arts in the community, making a climate-friendly life change, sharing something just for the sake of adding splendor to the world.

I could go on, but you get the point. To me, this is the work of life, of living, what it takes to be both a human being and a human doing. It helps make massive tasks condensable, brings relief from overwhelm, and turns the mundane into spaces of resistance and recharge. I totally get that many of us are doing the other kind of work (alienating, exploitative) at a level that makes it hard to think about “work” as a tool for release. Yet what I’m suggesting is an attempt to reclaim work from that baggage. Let’s get back to it.

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Perhaps an odd piece to return with after a while away, yet perhaps not since recent events are what sparked this theme in the first place. I’m not usually partial to the self-help sort of vibe, for myself at least (probably a mistake on my part, but anyway), but this theme has been bouncing around in my mind and even as a working (pun intended) mantra at times. To be clear, doing nothing can also be a potent strategy, even though for me that’s hard to do (or not do). {NB: revised version here courtesy of the good people at Awakin…}