Getting Ahead: Ponder Your Career With a Spiritual Search

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A GUIDANCE COUNSELOR FOR OUR TIME, author/therapist/ex-monk Thomas Moore's new book advocates that old cliche — follow your heart —when it comes to career satisfaction. "A Life at Work" ($24.95, Broadway) uses personal anecdotes, alchemical theory and feel-good messages to emphasize what we all learned in high school but have all forgotten: If you're not true to yourself at work, just as in any area of life, you'll be unhappy.

Yeah, he veers into Jack Handey-like pop-psychology and vague ideas sometimes, meaning this isn't a self-help book or "Five Easy Ways to Improve Your Job." But for a quiet, understated way to get inspiration to face the next Monday, it works.

» EXPRESS: What mistakes do we make when thinking about our jobs?
» MOORE: We separate our jobs from home life, raising children, having a partner, and that's a mistake. If we could see connections between these and other parts of life, like traveling or volunteering … all of it's a life work.

» EXPRESS: If everyone followed your principles, would we still have janitors and receptionists?
» MOORE: I would certainly hope we would. These are not bad jobs, really. I think a lot of people, at times, would love to have a job where they don't have to get an education, where they can just show up and leave at the end of the day.

» EXPRESS: Why do you think so many people now get trapped in jobs that they hate?
» MOORE: Most of us probably just look for a job that's going to give us a decent paycheck. I don't think people generally think about their jobs as having to do with the meaning of their lives, so they end up doing work that is not in tune with themselves. They may get away with it for a few years, but then it begins to gnaw at them.

» EXPRESS: How can you convince family and friends that you aren't crazy when you give up a "good" job for something less conventional?
» MOORE: When you're living your own life, other people are going to be shocked and disturbed. They're, in a hidden way, jealous. But we can help people. Language is very powerful. We can tell people, very simply, "I'm willing to take this chance."

» EXPRESS: How can you know when you're making the right choice?
» MOORE: You can't. There's more certainty when everyone is telling you you're doing the right thing, or when you are making a lot of money. Allow yourself time to experiment, to fail. You don't find your life work overnight, and you have to forgive yourself for failures along the way.

» EXPRESS: So, if you love your job, is going to work every day a blast?
» MOORE: It's important to love what you're doing, but that doesn't mean you enjoy every minute of it. Some people love what they're doing because of what it contributes to the world. They can put up with drudgery if they're making a difference. I've been visiting nurses, and they are telling me very intensely that they love their work because they're giving something to people around them. Yet you can't say, "I really love working with bedpans."

» EXPRESS: Do you think people who aren't spiritual can relate to this book?
» MOORE: There are obstacles in the way to getting to know what spirituality is about. It's usually presented so horribly. It's presented in church, where there are so many rules and condemnations. Or they get it from people who are simplistic and naive, in a New Age-y fashion. It's a wonder that anyone is drawn to it at all. Get some classic spiritual writing, like the Tao Te Ching. It's a spiritual point of view, but there's nothing to believe in. I think belief is way overdone.

» EXPRESS: What keeps people from changing jobs?
» MOORE: One obstacle is that people are invested in a particular career or position. They've put a lot of time into it, and they feel stuck in it. It's very hard to go and start from the beginning somewhere. A lot of people who had high-paying jobs in the computer industry, it was not what they wanted to do their entire lives, so they just quit. Those people did feel a little inferior about it. "I can no longer tell people I have this great job, but on the other hand, I'm doing what I want to do." That sustains them.

» EXPRESS: What could I do today to start change?
» MOORE: Find a friend and talk to them about your work, what you feel called to do in life, whether you're actually doing it or not. If you talk about that today, that would be a big step forward. Sometimes you take [conversation] for granted.

» EXPRESS: And you write that a life work is always evolving.
» MOORE: It never ends. My father is 95. He thought his life was pretty well set when he retired at 60. At 95, he's still having an interesting life [beginning piano lessons and more].

Written by Rachel Kaufman
Photo courtesy of Joan Hanley