Some thoughts:
The word "job" comes from the AngloSaxon and means a lump. At the
beginning of the industrial revolution there were critics who said that
man was never made to do a lump of work. He needs to be part of the
bigger picture, a part of the community (communitas:being one with
others): building the clock tower, the town center, the cobble stone roads
in and out of the city, supplying the needs of the community.
There is a great deal of pathos when we realize that today we continually
talk about losing our "lumps."
Jung spoke of Depression as a form of Inflation and also as a way the
soul(psyche/unifying personal force/or whatever you want to call it) digs
down into the unconscious and dredges up out of the depths something on
which the individual can work and grow. Maybe akin to the LO within the
individual.
The Inflation:
"My depression is so bad I can't sleep more than 3 hours a night."
"Well, mine is so bad that not only can I not sleep more than 2 hours, I'm
unable to do my job like I once did, and I may lose a job which I've had
for 15 years because we're right-sizing."
"If you think, yours is bad, I wake up every day knowing that I wish my
life were over."
The Dredge:
Am I fulfilling my purpose in life? What is my purpose in life? I said I
wanted to achieve this position and I have...now what? Is this what all
this work and dedication and committment get me? "I know...but I don't
have time to reflect...I'm too busy just trying to make it."
I know there is Clinical Depression and I know how it effects the life of
the individual suffering from it, and even more so those who live with and
love that individual.
In a LO, perceptions are continually being altered. So if a person charts
their life with its high points and low points, the line graph goes above
the midline and then dips below the midline (like graphing profits and
losses over time).
Below the line when low enough is depression...above the line...doing
good, better or great. The continuity however is that the individual is
going from point A to B along the midline and then evaluating good above
the line and bad below the line.
The problem is often when in depression or below the line, the individual
has forgotten when he or she is heading...or where they're going wasn't
big enough to encompass the loss of a job or a significant change.
If you use the sailing metaphor, I want to go from point A to B...which is
a straight line. Even when I put my course on the wall so everyone can
see it, I don't identify the above the line points of my course as good
and the below the line points of my course as bad...they are merely
"tacks."
I purchased "The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in
Corporate America" by David Whyte for all the CEOs and Presidents in a
group I facilitate for The Executive Committee (TEC). It brings to life,
the point in each of our lives and the lives of those we serve in
corporate settings where:
Nel mezzo del cammin
De nostra vita
Mi retrovai
Per un oscure selva.
Commedia
Dante Alighieri
In the middle of the road of my life
I awoke in a dark wood
where the true way was was wholly lost.
Whyte goes on to say: "In three brief lines Dante says that the journey
begins right here. In the middle of the road. Right beneath your feet.
This is the place. There is no other place and no other time. Even if you
are successful and follow the road you have set yourself, you can never
leave here. Despite everything you have achieved, life refuses to grant
you, and always will refuse to grant you, immunity from its difficulities."
p. 27 (The Heart Aroused. Currency Doubleday, 1994, 1996)
In health and on the run,
Ozzie Gontang
Life is childhood of our immortality. Goethe
The Gontangs (Ozzie, Jan, Erin, Allison)
Austin "Ozzie" Gontang, Ph.D.
2903 29th St.
San Diego, CA 92104-4912
ph.619 281-7447
fax. 619-281-9468
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