Welcome to the Meaningful Work Newsletter, brought to you by Philosophy2u! It’s our second monthly issue, and we’ve had such great comments that we decided to bring as much substance as we can. So, against the conventional wisdom of social media strategy (i.e. short-attention span), we're going long-form! We’re also pleased to announce that OD&D specialist, Joseph Smart, will be featured as a regular contributor to the Practice column, which deals with practical advice and tips. If you're not subscribed to our mailing list, you can do so below. You can also join the conversation in our dedicated LinkedIn group.
Dr Todd Mei Editor |
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Content for August 2023 Our topics for this month are Courage and Grit. What Are Courage & Grit? Practice: Applying Grit Ideation: The Courage To Be Guest Column: Mourning and Meaningful Work
by Stephanie Arel (PhD)
~ “Our work lives consist of dimensions of change. Being fired from a job and/or changing jobs poses different dilemmas that may need attention through mourning depending on the involvement of self-definition related to any particular job or associated identity.” |
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What Are Courage & Grit? “How do you know someone’s dedicated, where they will give their life to this cause [of saving the world]? The easy test for me was, put it [Indie Bio] on a street where prostitutes are and heroine is being shot up literally within five feet of the door; and there’s human feces everywhere. And you gotta walk through that to get into the front door? It’s a reminder of what we’re working for. It’s the span of humanity we’re working for. If you can’t save these people, then why bother? So I think it was a test of humanity for me, as well: that either you’re going to be disgusted by it and run away, or you’re going to say, ‘Man, this is a tragedy that needs to be solved’.”
Arvind Gupta Founder of Indie Bio Interview on Living Philosophy * * * * *
Grit is to courage, as a grain of sand is to the desert.
(I’ll come back to this!)
Courage is not only an older concept than grit, but it is also more generalized in meaning. In the West, our philosophical lineage is rooted in the ancient Athenian conception of courage (andreia), specifically in the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE when Plato and Aristotle were alive.
While much of the business management literature will refer to courage as a “skill”, it is more accurately a virtue. A virtue is a character trait that enables one to act in ways an individual and their community see as fitting. Courage is the disposition to act without being controlled by fear of harm to oneself and to others.
As a virtue, courage cannot be learned like a skill; rather, it takes experience and wisdom to apply appropriately. Because we tend not to speak commonly of virtues today, this subtle and important distinction is lost. To learn more about the ins and outs of virtues, have a look at P2U’s short video explainer below.
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Grit is a newer concept, whose first usage was recorded in 1808 in the United States. Metaphorically, it refers specifically to “pluck, spirit, firmness of mind”. (N.B. courage is also related to spirit, as in the Old French corage.) The original meaning of grit was, of course, tiny particles of sand or dirt.
For the metaphorical idea of grit to make sense, one must have a general grasp of the meaning of courage. How can one have dedication, resolve, or firmness of mind, without the courage to persevere?
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Courage is the general idea from which grit can be applied. (Or, as philosophers like to say, courage is conceptually and logically prior to grit.) Hence, like a vast desert, courage encompasses each and everything related to fearlessness, bravery, and spiritedness. Grit, like the particle of sand, is the specific and intensely focused application of courage to a project or end.
Find that oasis!
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Practice: Applying Grit Imagine this: David Beckham, the football sensation whose name resonates worldwide. His free kicks have etched his name in the annals of sports history, none more iconic than that moment against Greece in 2002, when he snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. It was the 93rd minute, the World Cup finals hanging in the balance, and an entire nation holding its breath. The outcome? A triumphant goal that unleashed euphoria across Britain. But don't be fooled — this was no mere stroke of luck.
Beckham's secret? Grit. The unrelenting resolve to perfect his craft, to refine his skills, to learn from every kick — whether it sailed into the net or ricocheted off the wall. It's a testament to his unwavering tenacity, his refusal to bow down to adversity. His journey was rife with crests and troughs, yet his grit propelled him forward, from peaks of victory to abysses of challenge and back.
But what exactly is grit?
Angela Duckworth, a beacon in psychology, divulges the answer. Grit is the alchemy that transforms setbacks into stepping stones, adversity into opportunity. In her revolutionary work, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Duckworth unveils the mystical formula behind unparalleled achievement.
Contrary to the mirage of overnight mastery, true victory demands time, effort, and an iron will to weather storms. Duckworth's West Point study, where grit eclipsed raw intelligence, highlights the transformative prowess of this trait. While IQ may gauge intelligence, grit ignites the resilience to navigate barriers and emerge victorious.
Reflect on these markers, crafted by Duckworth, to measure your grit quotient:
Do multi-year projects excite you? Are your goals a testament to your long-term commitment? Does your daily hustle align with your core values? Is there a subject or activity that perpetually enthralls you? Do obstacles merely pause you momentarily? Is hard work your constant companion? Do you finish what you initiate, persistently striving to evolve?
Now, how do we kindle the flames of grit in those around us? The strategy is simple yet transformative:
Exemplify Grit: Lead with your actions. When you ardently chase your passions, others will be drawn to your fervor. Share your defeats and the wisdom unearthed from each stumble. Celebrate Grit: When you witness grit in action, celebrate it. Acknowledge the sweat, the tears, and the determination propelling individuals to remarkable heights. Foster Grit: Remember, grit doesn't flourish in isolation. Be the voice that whispers encouragement on the toughest days. Your support might be the lifeline someone needs to persevere. Joseph Smart OD&D Consultant, Smart Joseph Consulting |
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Ideation: The Courage To Be It’s natural to think of courage in terms of personal experiences when valor or bravery was needed to overcome some obstacle, fear, or threat. But it’s important not to reduce the notion of courage to just these instances. There’s a deeper, more philosophical meaning to courage that can be quite useful and instructive when facing those hugely significant changes or decisions that tend to be drawn out, distended, and persistent. For lack of a better term, I’ll refer to these as transformational challenges since such challenges typically occupy a long duration of time — from weeks and months for an organization, to months and years (even a lifetime!) for individuals. Transformation takes time.
Transformation also takes quite a bit of courage, but of a sort that is more fundamental and grounding than the instances of bravery I mentioned above.
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Rosa Parks at the front of the bus post-segregation. Photo by J. Maschhoff The existentialist theologian, Paul Tillich (1886-1965), wrote a short but highly influential book called The Courage To Be, which explores various conceptions within the history of philosophy. Tillich offers his own formulation:
courage is “self-affirmation in-spite-of
In spite of what? Whatever is blocking one’s self-affirmation. It’s important to remember that existentially wrought, the idea of self-affirmation means the activity of affirming what gives oneself a larger sense of purpose and meaning. Tillich refers to this as “ultimate concern”.
In short, the courage to be is the courage to recognize and affirm what one has determined to be purposeful and meaningful in life. The moral of the story: Courage to weather changes at work and in life requires being anchored in larger purposes than an individual might first think; or even larger than an organization’s expressed mission and values. And that thought is not just philosophical, Wharton Business School seems to like it, too!
The courage to be is key to unlocking new dimensions of work culture . . . and that is meaningful!
Dr Todd Mei
Founder and Consultant for Philosophy2u |
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Mourning and Meaningful Work Grieving and mourning function differently. Imagine each as two consecutive stages of loss. Grief strikes immediately after a loss, as a reaction to that loss. Mourning comes later and differentiates itself from grief as an in-depth process. The process entails integrating loss and its meaning into present reality, a new reality that exists absent the person or thing lost. Life entails loss. After loss, shock, heaviness, sadness, and denial surface. The body senses an overload. The chest tightens; breathing shifts, and muscles ache. Everyday activities require intense labor; eating, walking, and working are a chore. Grieving may include thinking about how loss can be reversed. This bargaining makes up one of the five stages of grief commonly understood in the popular theory of Elizabeth Kübler Ross. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance characterize her framework for grieving. Each stage takes time, but forecasts the later, longer internal manner of mourning, most frequently understood through Sigmund Freud’s theory outlined in Mourning and Melancholia. |
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Mourning is an internal evolution that takes place after loss that continues well beyond the loss itself. When loss occurs, energy bounds itself to the lost person, idea, or object. That energy must be released – or consciously elucidated. If that energy is not released, it continues to make an impact on the self and transforms into more complicated forms of grief or depression. For instance, when people lose a loved one but continue throughout their life to define experiences through this loved one, they evidence complicated grief and a lack of truly mourning the loved one’s absence. The same thing happens with the loss of an ideal, a job, or an identity. That thing, and the energy around it, must be released in order to really move forward in growth. What must be mourned? Any life change can initiate a process of mourning. Change may be the impact of losing a loved one. But change occurs with ideas and things as well. Progressing into adulthood for instance signifies the privation of childhood; the term for this is developmental loss. Generally, change that inspires mourning constitutes something significant attached to a negative perception, but change can also be positive and still provoke grief and mourning. In fact, grieving even a positive change facilitates the mourning process and inspires growth. Our work lives consist of dimensions of change. Being fired from a job and/or changing jobs poses different dilemmas that may need attention through mourning depending on the involvement of self-definition related to any particular job or associated identity. We each have a sense of self and ways in which we identify ourselves. With any big change, or loss, a reorientation takes place. This reorientation requires a retesting of reality — what Freud asserts makes up the nuts and bolts of mourning. The retest entails grief — the loss provokes sadness — but the new reality — identity, role, or work — must be invited into new self-understanding where the loss has less of an emotional impact. This dynamic also occurs after losing a loved one. Problems develop when we fail to harmonize or balance loss with the new day-to-day reality. One reason the mourning process confounds us is that not all loss is just one singular loss. Enduring loss as a child for instance often resurges when adult life presents us with additional losses. |
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A still from Citizen Kane (1941). If you have ever watched a movie and surprised yourself with tears or anger related to a personal memory, you have experienced this kind of layering of loss. Neurological pathways that signal grief connect to previous experiences of grief and mourning. The past collides with the present. That’s why consciously marking, symbolizing, and understanding loss is so important. What is the mourning process? Mourning entails working through the meaning of loss and the significance of the lost loved one or thing. In the process of mourning, the world looks poor, empty, and meaningless. Through mourning, we reorient such meaninglessness and make something of deprivation. Memories are dissolved and drawn to a close (a painful procedure that looks different across cultures). We test reality to make sense of the new world without what we have lost. Ambivalence — holding onto a memory or always thinking of returning to past job — and evasion of mourning can become pathological and lead to a sense of impoverishment in the self. Then mourning transforms into what Freud called melancholia. Melancholia entails directing loss internally — unconsciously storing meaning that says the loss has something to do with the self. In terms of work, the undoing of a title, a position, or a job itself becomes cathected into the self: one believes the loss has something to do with the self. Only truly mourning releases this sense of lack. How do we mourn? No one method of mourning works for everyone. But keeping a few activities or practices in mind steadies the process. Recognition Responsiveness Reflection Rest
These practices are not linear but offer some core actions that can be engaged to help the mourning process and alleviate the possibility for loss to unduly complicate life. Recognition of the need to mourn is critical. In mourning, the loss may be apparent, but after loss, life appears to go back to normal, especially for those who have not endured the loss. Judging the self based on deep, painful feelings, especially if the loss leads to something positive, can lead to guilt, denial, and repression. The lost person or object becomes held within the self, even protected there. Recognizing the need to mourn, to release the energy attached to the loss, can begin to dismantle its perceived heaviness. Responsiveness to the self — just as responding to others in need — is another practice to facilitate the mourning process. Responding to the self — with compassion, love, and patience — allows liberation of sadness, pain, and distress. Responsiveness adjusts self-talk from something negative into something positive. Judgment becomes patience; guilt transforms into acceptance. The integration of deprivation into real life settles the system and invites an unbinding of the stored-up memories or energy around loss. This does not mean an eradication of memory or stories but rather a shift in the number and intensity of emotions such memories evoke. |
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The author, Dr. Stephanie Arel. Processing these memories requires reflection. Reflection entails thinking about the impact of the loss, understanding the ways in which loss connects to and expands other losses, and transforming loss into new meaning or signification that connects to present reality. For better or for worse, the grieving process takes time. Length of time depends on the relationship to who has been lost or the level of an investment in an idea or ideal. Positive changes, altering a career or retiring, always also entail loss. Mourning requires a significant amount of energy and time, requiring rest. Rest does not constitute an escape from life but rather a gentle calm that ushers in a new life or reality. Rather than sleeping hours on the couch, envision activities that take less strength, stamina, or intellectual capacity: walk on a quiet morning rather than run along a busy highway. Ultimately, mourning possesses qualities and practices that we can engage in order to move forward after enduring loss. Whether we lose someone we love, say goodbye to an old self, or accept the disintegration of a dream or ideal, mourning introduces growth. Growing encompasses a new reality, one that welcomes possibilities, even the face of loss. About the Author Stephanie Arel is currently an Instructor at Fordham University. Previously, she was an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum and a visiting researcher at New York University (2017-2019). She is the author of Affect Theory, Shame and Christian Formation (Palgrave Macmillan 2016) and co-editor of Post-Traumatic Public Theology (Palgrave Macmillan 2016) and Ideology and Utopia in the Twenty-First Century: The Surplus of Meaning in Ricoeur's Dialectical Concept (Lexington 2018). She holds a certificate in treatment for trauma in the clinical setting from the New York Institute in Psychoanalysis. Fortress Press will publish her next book, Bearing Witness: The Wounds of Mass Trauma at Memorial Museums, in September of 2023. She has hosted two podcasts, Bearing Witness: The Impact of Memorialization - a companion to the book, and The Khôra, about jobs that confront trauma. |
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