Mel Brooks, the Chinese Gourmet Society, and the stoking of creativity and mutual support

One of my favorite parts of filmmaker and comedian Mel Brooks’s breezy, funny memoir, All About Me! My Remarkable Life in Show Business (2021), is a short chapter devoted to what he and his pals called the “Chinese Gourmet Society.”

For some nine years starting in the early 1950s (apparently — he gives no dates!), Brooks and a group of invited friends met for dinner every Tuesday night in New York’s Chinatown. While membership varied over the years, the group included:

• Irving “Speed” Vogel, one of Brooks’s long-time friends and a textile factory manager turned direct metal sculptor;
• Ngoot Lee, a friend of Vogel who worked for Bloomingdale’s as a calligrapher and furniture designer and knew of the best restaurants in Chinatown;
• Authors Georgie Mandel (The Wax Boom), Joseph Heller (Catch 22), and Mario Puzo (The Godfather) — all before they made it big; and,
• Julie Green, an “incredibly well read” diamond merchant.

Brooks doesn’t go into detail about what they talked about during those dinners, but he credits his friends and these dinners for providing “stability and inspiration” and getting him through some lean and difficult years. Indeed, as Brooks writes, the group had some dining rules that reflected their tight budgets and a commitment to this fellowship:

We had strict eating rules at the Chinese Gourmet Society. You were not allowed to eat two mouthfuls of fish, meat, or chicken without an intermediate mouthful of rice. Otherwise, you would be consuming only the expensive food. The check and tip, and the parking fees, if any, were equally divided among the members. It was compulsory, if you were in New York, not working nights, and in reasonable health, to be present at every Chinese Gourmet Society meeting.

We can only imagine what it must’ve been like to share a weekly dinner with this eclectic, talented crew, before many of them became prominent and very successful. How did their various conversations generate creative artistic and business ideas? How did they support each other when money was tight, success was far from assured, and assorted life challenges presented themselves? I’m quite sure that those dinners, in addition to providing an enjoyable social outlet, stoked both artistic genius and mutual support.

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I have long been fascinated by, and sometimes envious of, these small, informal, intentional cohorts of interesting, smart, creative people who meet regularly over meals in a spirit of fellowship. I even have a small collection of books built around other examples of these groups, including, among others:

• Laura J. Snyder’s The Philosophical Breakfast Club (2011) shares how four men who first crossed paths at Cambridge University — Charles Babbage (mathematics and computing), John Herschel (astronomy and photography), William Whewell (multiple fields of science), and Richard Jones (economic science) — began meeting over Sunday morning breakfast during the 1800s to exchange ideas and plant the seeds of the modernization of science.
• Louis Menand’s The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America (2001) focuses on the lives and ideas of four remarkable members of a conversational club that met throughout 1872: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (law), Charles Sanders Pierce (philosophy), William James (philosophy and psychology), and John Dewey (education and philosophy).
• Philip Zaleski & Carol Zeleski’s The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings (2015) tells the story of how writers C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien and other intellectuals formed a literary club, the Inklings, that met weekly in various pubs and other locations around Oxford University during the 1950s, “to drink, smoke, quip, cavil, read aloud their works in progress, and endure or enjoy with as much grace as they could muster the sometimes blistering critiques that followed.”

While these groups offer their own fascinating stories, one of the great appeals of Mel Brooks’s Chinese Gourmet Society is its comparatively motley membership, untethered to a prominent university. Their work and creative aspirations were more commercial in nature, while having the power to shape our popular culture. I’m also betting that the more disparate occupations of the Chinese Gourmet Society members made for greater varieties of conversations and sharing of information and ideas.

(I readily acknowledge that these groups I’ve talked about above are noticeably lacking in gender and racial diversity. It is very likely that many similar stories remain to be told, or have been told and I am simply unaware of them.)

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The formation of these groups and larger tribes cannot be forced or contrived; any genuine sense of fellowship has to be somewhat organic in its formation, bringing together the right mix of personalities, intellects, dispositions, and interests. Food and drink help as well!

Although I have never been part of any ongoing group like the Chinese Gourmet Society, the Philosophical Breakfast Club, the Metaphysical Club, or the Inklings, I have experienced these fellowship experiences on a short-term, in-person basis, typically through the work I’m doing on workplace bullying and employment relations generally, human dignity, and therapeutic jurisprudence. Here are several pertinent blog posts:

• “Conferences as community builders” (2015) (link here) — About the biennial Work, Stress and Health conference co-sponsored by the American Psychological Association, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and Society for Occupational Health Psychology;
• “Tribes for brewing ideas and engaging in positive change” (2015; rev. 2019) (link here) — A piece contemplating how to nurture tribes to engage in collaborative change;
• “Launched in Prague: The International Society for Therapeutic Jurisprudence” (2017) (link here) — How we launched an international learned society devoted to advancing therapeutic jurisprudence at the International Congress on Law and Mental Health, in Prague, Czech Republic.
• “A workshop as annual ritual” (2019) (link here) — A look at the annual December workshop of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies, held in New York City.
• “A veteran cohort of the workplace anti-bullying movement gathers in Boston” (2023) (link here) — Practitioners and scholars addressing workplace bullying, many of whom are associated with the Workplace Bullying Institute, gathered for an interactive workshop in Boston last year.

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I think it remains to be determined if Zoom and other communications platforms can be the central enablers for fostering such fellowship opportunities. My basic hypothesis is that Zoom, et al., can serve as a valuable connector between in-person gatherings, but that periodic face-to-face exchanges are a necessary component for sustaining successful cohorts of this nature.

Chip Conley on embracing midlife

I’m not quite sure when I started to use the term midlife in association with, well, my own life, but I think it was during my late 40s. At the time, it did make me feel older to concede that I had entered this stage. Now, however, having entered the heart of my 60s, I’m wondering how much longer I can claim to be in this relatively youthful category.

Well, my concerns are now somewhat assuaged by entrepreneur and author Chip Conley, who suggests that midlife is a multi-stage journey that “may last from 35 to 75.” This broader chronological framing of midlife is just one interesting piece of his new book, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better With Age (Little, Brown Spark, 2024). I recommend it heartily, though with a quibble or two.

Conley pulls together a lot of aspects about how we address aging, starting with a look at life expectancy figures and suggesting that at 50 years old, someone could literally be at their midlife point. He encourages us to look at this as a time of growth, purpose, and fulfillment rather than as one marked by steady decline. This includes becoming comfortable in our own skin, redefining our relationship with work, letting go of unhealthy emotional baggage and ties, seeking out meaningful associations and activities, and basically becoming our best selves.

The book mixes the author’s personal anecdotes, summaries of research on aging and lifespan development (he’s done his homework), and a wide variety of other voices. On the latter, if authors such as Brené Brown, Joseph Campbell, Arthur C. Brooks, and Viktor Frankl sound familiar, then you’ll be in comfortable territory. Overall, it’s an easy and thought provoking read.

My quibbles pertain mainly to this genre of writing generally. While Conley has faced his share of personal challenges, he and others who write about life stages and aging from a personal development perspective tend to have financial resources and strong networks. There is, frankly, an upper middle class lean to these introspective looks at life, which makes books such as this more useful to those who have some degree of personal control over their choices and financial flexibility.

That said, Conley isn’t limiting his messaging to those with lots of time and money. His Modern Elder Academy, for example, is offering an online course that includes a copy of Learning to Love Midlife for $49 (link here). 

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By the way, if you’re looking for a more intellectual take on evaluating your life, then I’m happy to recommend the second edition of Leading Lives That Matter: What We Should Do and Who We Should Be (Eerdmans, 2020), edited by Mark R. Schwehn and Dorothy C. Bass of Valparaiso University, where I earned my bachelor’s degree many years ago. It’s an anthology of excerpted texts drawn from literature, public affairs, and philosophy, built around the theme captured by the title. Although written with undergraduate humanities seminars in mind, it’s a great volume for adults engaging in midlife contemplations consistent with Chip Conley’s book above.

The Economist’s Bartleby advises: Don’t retire!

The Economist‘s “Bartleby” column typically offers thoughtful contemplations on work and career related matters pertinent to managers, executives, and other professional workers. In the current issue of this venerable British newsmagazine, Bartleby serves up a thought-provoking headline: “Why you should never retire” (link here, but may be paywalled).

Bartley acknowledges two main questions that many professionals face when pondering retirement: Finances (can I afford to retire?) and purpose (what shall I do during retirement that brings meaning?).

Bartleby then adds a third question, one that is related to purpose but more nuanced: If I retire, how will I feel relevant? In other words, “leisure gives you all the time in the world but tends to marginalise you as you are no longer in the game.” The piece adds:

…(C)an anything truly replace the framework and buzz of being part of the action? You can have a packed diary devoid of deadlines, meetings and spreadsheets and flourish as a consumer of theatre matinees, art exhibitions and badminton lessons. Hobbies are all well and good for many. But for the extremely driven, they can feel pointless and even slightly embarrassing.

That is because there is depth in being useful. And excitement, even in significantly lower doses than are typical earlier in a career, can act as an anti-ageing serum.

There may be something of a gendered component to these questions, with men disproportionately linking purpose and relevance to their work. I know that I fall into this category. By contrast, I also know some moms holding very significant jobs whose kids and grandkids would offer all the purpose and relevance they need in retirement. (Of course, no doubt some men fall into this category as well.)

In addition, as the Bartleby piece suggests, abundant options exist for engaging in meaningful, richly rewarding activities with the freedom of time provided by retirement. It could be in the form of volunteer work taking advantage of one’s professional skills, or perhaps picking up new skills that lead to a brand-new form of service. Maybe it involves giving one’s heart to a house full of animals or working at the local rescue shelter.

Speaking personally

During the heart of the pandemic, when my university held classes almost exclusively online (via Zoom), I frequently thought about retirement. In particular, teaching larger classes on Zoom was a draining experience for me. I found myself thinking that if this was my future as a professor, then I’d want to retire as soon as feasibly possible.

Today, I have a new burst of energy for teaching since returning to the in-person classroom. I also have a deepened engagement with my scholarly, public education, advocacy work on topics such as workplace bullying, therapeutic jurisprudence, and advancing human dignity generally. Purpose? Relevance? I feel both in abundance right now, and I’m trying to maximize those experiences and opportunities.

Retirement: The enormous privilege of choice

Of course, all of the above presumes the enormous privilege of choice when it comes to a retirement decision, and that option does not extend to everyone. Here in the U.S., we are in the unfolding stages of a major retirement funding crisis that will stretch over the generations without a big fix, a topic I have written about often on this blog. (For example, here, here, and here.) Millions are working well past traditional retirement ages because they need the money, not because they’re finding any deep intrinsic rewards in the work itself.

The creation of a better retirement system is a big public policy challenge for America. Despite the glaring human needs, however, I don’t sense a lot of political will for enacting much-needed reforms, especially if they must be paid for by the powerful and well-to-do.

Thus, for those who continue to work deep into their later years because they must, I hope we will discover our heart quality sooner than later when it comes to boosting our Social Security program, among other things. And for those who continue to work because of all the rewards it may deliver, I hope it will be with a sense of gratitude and responsibility for the work itself, matched by a spirit of generosity towards helping those in need.

Origin story: Stumbling upon an interview about workplace bullying

Printout found in a storage box.

Lately I’ve been sorting through a lot of papers and files that I’ve stored in boxes for years. Such was the case over the weekend, when I found a printout of an online interview featuring a social psychologist that changed the trajectory of my life and career.

During the spring of 1998, when the internet and the World Wide Web were still shiny new things, I stumbled upon an online interview with Dr. Gary Namie, who was talking about something he called workplace bullying. He explained that his wife, Dr. Ruth Namie, a clinical psychologist, had been experiencing a form of severe, ongoing, targeted mistreatment at her place of employment, an HMO, that they couldn’t quite name.

It wasn’t sexual harassment, and it wasn’t discrimination. They searched around and found that the term workplace bullying was being used in England to describe exactly what Ruth was enduring. They also learned that a related term, workplace mobbing, had been popularized in Sweden.

The Namies would take this new-found knowledge to create what they called the Campaign Against Workplace Bullying, later to become the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI) which remains the foremost North American resource on workplace bullying.

***

I read that interview and my head was exploding. I knew instantly that the Namies were on to something with this “workplace bullying” thing. I would track down their phone number and call them, asking if they had explored legal protections for workplace bullying targets. They said no, that this was a project for later. At present, they were running a free hotline for those who had been bullied at work.

I offered to start researching the legal implications of workplace bullying under U.S. employment and labor law, and the Namies were happy to accept my offer. This substantial research project would result in a long law review article documenting the lack of legal protections for so many targets of severe workplace bullying, published two years later in the Georgetown Law Journal (link here). 

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On origin stories: During the ongoing process of culling the amount of printed material in my possession, I’m often finding stuff that brings back significant memories. Some recall certain origin stories, i.e., those moments that led to significant, defining things in my life.  This is the first of three that I’ll be sharing on this blog, including lessons learned from them. 

If asked to describe the key piece of my origin story in terms of doing this anti-bullying work and devoting a substantial portion of my career to it, then reading that interview would be it. At the time, I was a junior law professor, just getting my scholarly agenda in workers’ rights and employment law & policy off the ground. The aforementioned Georgetown Law Journal piece was the final scholarly entry in my tenure portfolio, and gave me considerable momentum towards what would be a positive tenure vote. It also would lead to my drafting the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill. Moreover, my outreach to the Namies opened the door to a friendship and an association that has continued to this day.

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Lessons: So what are some of the lessons of this origin story?

• Surf around for stuff pertinent to your interests. Type in those search requests and click around a bit.
• When you do find something that interests you, dig deeper, reach out, and be willing to contribute to the body of work surrounding it.
• If you discover a compelling, unexplored foray that others may have missed or haven’t yet found, then seize the opportunity to take a lead role, being both bold and responsible about it.

***

Recommended podcast episode: In 2022, I interviewed Gary and Ruth for their WBI podcast series, asking them about their origin story concerning their invaluable work. You may access it here.

Autobiographical reflections: Mark Satin’s “Up From Socialism”

At the start of my second year as an instructor in the Lawyering program at New York University School of Law in 1992, I looked at my new class list of first-year students and saw a familiar name: Mark Satin. I would quickly confirm that this was the very Mark Satin who had written and edited a self-styled, left leaning yet “post-liberal” political newsletter titled New Options, which I had enjoyed as a subscriber.

Mark was 46 years old when he arrived at NYU Law. He brought with him an established reputation as an anti-war and left activist during the 1960s and as a progressive political writer during the 1970s. His first book, New Age Politics: Healing Self and Society (1976 + several revised editions), had generated considerable discussion as an attempt to synthesize and make sense of the politics of the New Left during the 60s and 70s.

After many years of writing and editing New Options, Mark sought to gain a stronger understanding of, and greater impact within, the societal mainstream. He figured that law school would give him some insights on how the worlds of law, policy, and commerce operated, so he set his sights on obtaining a legal education and earning a law degree. He took the Law School Admissions Test, filed his applications, and eventually landed on my 1L class list at NYU Law.

***

During our overlapping years at NYU, Mark and I shared many conversations about law, politics, legal education, and the general state of things. He was thoroughly invested as a law student, typically on his own terms and with a genuine curiosity about the Generation Xers who comprised the heart of the law school student body. Always attentive to emerging trends, and sometimes a key player in shaping them, he wanted to write a broad-ranging paper that surveyed and analyzed the linkages between law and psychology in many different aspects of legal thought and practice. That monumental research project would lead to a published article, “Law and Psychology: A Movement Whose Time Has Come,” in the Annual Survey of American Law, one of NYU’s student-edited law reviews.

Upon graduation, Mark held true to his goal of experiencing more of the mainstream, joining a small boutique business law firm in Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center. But sooner than later, he couldn’t resist the continuing siren call of writing and publishing. As the new millennium approached, Mark’s evolving social and political outlook were leading him to a place that he called the “radical middle.” His next newsletter creation was called just that. He wrote and published Radical Middle Newsletter (1999- 2009) (articles and back issues freely available here), and authored a book, Radical Middle: The Politics We Need Now (2004).

***

Mark has brought together the chapters of a rich life in an engaging autobiography, Up From Socialism: My 60-Year Search for a Healing New Radical Politics (2023). Do not expect a political tome here. This is a life recalled and reflected upon in a first-person, journalistic style. It is very opinionated, not overly concerned with political correctness, and sometimes rather detailed about the author’s romantic connections, mostly with women of a certain political leaning.

And if I may put on my dime store amateur therapist’s hat, Up From Socialism is about the author’s search for healing as much as anything else. It flips an old progressive, feminist chestnut: The political is personal. If you doubt my assessment, then go to the last sentence of the second-to-last paragraph in Mark’s book. I don’t know if he has another book in mind, but if so, that’s its thesis statement and perhaps the starting point for shaping the rest of Mark’s life. (I won’t give it away, but has much to do with kindness.)

As for this book, I’m glad that Mark wrote it, and I’m glad that I read it. If any of this strikes your curiosity, then I’m happy to recommend it.

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I should disclose that I am a supporting bit player in Up From Socialism, and I have supported Mark’s various endeavors with board service, editorial feedback, and modest financial contributions. Upon Mark’s invitation, I reviewed an earlier draft of the book to provide feedback and suggestions, concentrating on the law school/legal practice chapter.

In addition, as I wrote in a 2019 blog piece, “Workplace bullying, worker dignity, and therapeutic jurisprudence: Finding my center of gravity” (link here), “the overlaps between Mark Satin’s ‘radical middle’ and my back-in-the-day brand of liberalism appear to be many, at least if my other affiliations with the workplace anti-bullying movement, therapeutic jurisprudence movement, and human dignity movement are any indication.”

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Editor’s Note: After I posted this piece, Mark Satin sent this reply by email and asked that it be added. I’m happy to do so:

COMMENT ON DAVID’S REVIEW OF MY BOOK, FROM MARK SATIN

Either David is being much too modest here, or he simply does not realize how much his perspective has contributed to my Up From Socialism book.  That book is, among other things, an exposé of the nastiness, competitiveness, ego-drivenness, and BULLYING that went on in the New Left of the 1960s, the supposedly more idealistic “transformational” movements of the 1970s-1990s, and the supposedly more buttoned-down radical-centrist activities of our day – not to mention what’s going on in the new New Left!

In Up From Socialism, I trace much of this awfulness back to many activists’ poor relationships with self, parents, and partners; that’s why there’s little separation in my book between the personal and the political.  And that’s why the explicitly stated moral of my book is, “Only by becoming kind people can we create a kind world.”  I think David has been saying the same thing in his own way, and he’s been saying it longer than I … I am a more or less Bad Guy through much of my book!

Ikigai: It’s not just for middle-aged searchers

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Ikigai, according to Wikipedia, “is a Japanese concept referring to something that gives a person a sense of purpose, a reason for living.” It is most commonly explained by invoking some version of the diagram reproduced above. The common center of all four circles is considered to be the state of ikigai.

Back in 2017, I wrote about ikigai in a post discussing personal satisfaction in one’s vocation or avocation. I’ve continued to see references to ikigai in various news features, often in the context of assessing one’s life at middle age.

Last year, I decided to add a session on ikigai to my law and psychology courses at Suffolk University Law School, which introduce students to the intersection of legal and psychological insights through the lens of therapeutic jurisprudence. “TJ,” as it is often tagged, is an interdisciplinary school of legal thought and practice that examines the therapeutic and anti-therapeutic properties of laws, legal systems, and legal institutions. 

Honestly, I wasn’t all that certain that a discussion around ikigai would resonate with a group of law students, most of whom are well short of their middle years. To my pleasant surprise, however, these discussions have been lively, thoughtful, and interactive. And, in a way that is capturing a recurring Generation Z theme, many students have folded into ikigai the importance of work-life balance. In their student evaluations, some have identified the ikigai discussion as being among their favorite parts of the course.

Sometimes an engaging, relatable concept captured in a simple diagram can yield interesting exchanges and valuable insights. I think that the ikigai diagram serves that role. My revised impression of ikigai is that it prompts important discussions and contemplations at many stages of one’s life. And, with some minor hacks and tweaking — such as taking into account vital uncompensated tasks such as parenting and caregiving, as well as meaningful avocations and hobbies — it has something to offer just about everyone.

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Note: For an introduction to the field of therapeutic jurisprudence, see my 2021 law review article, “Teaching Therapeutic Jurisprudence,” published in the University of Baltimore Law Review; go here for a freely downloadable pdf.)

Thanksgiving Week: Writing and remembrance

Hello, dear readers, I’m enjoying my traditional U.S. Thanksgiving trip to New York City right now. The 12 years I lived in this city (1982-94) were a personally and professionally formative time for me, so I always get a bit reflective when I visit.

With this morning’s publication of a piece contemplating the notion of personal libraries (see below for link) to the blog of Harrison Middleton University, where I’m doing a side gig as a 2022 Fellow in Ideas,  I thought I’d pull together variety of more recent (2018-present) writings from other sites, heavily themed on lifelong learning, books, popular culture, and personal nostalgia. I hope you find something here that strikes your fancy.

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Contemplations on a Personal Library (2022) (link here)

Living history: The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis as experienced by U.S. Navy officer on a destroyer (2022) (link here)

Forty summers ago, a first-ever trip to NYC (2022) (link here)

Pandemic Chronicles #26: Old postcards as time travel experiences (2021) (link here)

Embracing middlebrow culture: The Book-of-the-Month Club (2021) (link here)

Pandemic Chronicles #25: Monet, London fog, and memory at the Museum of Fine Arts (2021) (link here)

Studying the Great Books at the University of Chicago (2021) (link here)

Pandemic Chronicles #20: Witnessing “The Troubles” 40 years ago (2021) (link here)

Libraries as learning hangouts (2021) (link here)

What’s behind “More Than A Song”? (2021) (link here)

Pandemic Chronicles #8: And suddenly, our worlds became very small (2020) (link here)

Pandemic Chronicles #1: “Be careful what you wish for…” (2020) (link here)

Twenty-five years in Boston…whoa! (2019) (link here)

Music as a time machine: 1979 (2019) (link here)

What is it about cold weather that draws me to bookstores? (2018) (link here)

Two memorable semester breaks (2018) (link here)

Sharing insights about workplace bullying and mobbing in SafeHarbor, Part III

This year, I’ve been writing about my visits to SafeHarbor (link here), the online site created by Dr. Gary Namie, co-founder of the Workplace Bullying Institute, to serve as “a community dedicated to the people affected by workplace bullying and those devoted to helping them.” I’ve also shared some past blog articles that I’ve posted for SafeHarbor members.

During my visit to SafeHarbor this evening, it struck me how a combination of knowledge, understanding, and — yes — technology has brought us to where a site like this can exist and sustain. Members can start discussions, comment on existing threads, and link articles, thereby contributing to an educative and supportive dynamic that can overcome distance and physical separation.

When I joined forces with Gary and Ruth Namie in the late 1990s, the internet was still in its infancy, with the first generation of online discussion boards offering a glimpse of what might come. While I have very mixed feelings about the omnipresence of digital technology in our lives, I am glad that we can harness it for good purposes such as this one.

Once again, here are more past blog articles that I’ve posted to SafeHarbor:

• Not “Set for Life”: Boomers facing layoffs, discrimination, and bullying at work (2012) (link here)
• Are calls for resilience and “grit” an indirect form of victim shaming & blaming? (2016, rev. 2019 & 2022) (link here)
• Typing your workplace culture (2009; rev. 2022) (link here)
• Music as therapy (2021) (link here)
• On the social responsibilities of writers (2019) (link here)
• Myths and realities about working in the non-profit sector (2014) (link here)
• Let’s follow an Eightfold Path to psychologically healthy workplaces (2019) (link here)
• Dealing with “gatekeepers” at work: Beware of Dr. No (2011; rev. 2020) (link here)
• “How can I make a living doing workplace anti-bullying work?” (2019) (link here)
• Five signs of the eliminationist instinct in today’s workplaces (2015) (link here)

As the holidays approach, let’s consider how to live meaningful lives

The historic Old South Meeting House, Boston, Dec. 2013 (photo: DY)

As we approach the holiday season in a world of social, political, and pandemic tumult, it’s understandable and even sensible that many folks may feel more reflective than celebratory. Among the worthy topics of contemplation is how to find meaning in our lives.

Dr. Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (1956) is one of the most personally influential books that I’ve ever read. Frankl was a psychiatrist and concentration camp survivor who lost almost all of his immediate family in the Holocaust. The first part of the book details his concentration camp experiences. The second part explains his theory of counseling, called logotherapy. Frankl believed that life’s essence is about a search for meaning: “We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing a something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.”

In a recent piece for The Atlantic titled “Three Simple Ways to Find the Meaning in Life” (link here), Arthur C. Brooks summarizes a 2016 research study that identified three key dimensions for living a meaningful life:

If you haven’t yet found a sense of meaning at all, how do you go about searching for it without searching too much?…You can do so most effectively—and without too much obsessing—by assessing your life along three dimensions, which the psychologists Frank Martela and Michael F. Steger defined in The Journal of Positive Psychology in 2016:

• Coherence: how events fit together. This is an understanding that things happen in your life for a reason. That doesn’t necessarily mean you can fit new developments into your narrative the moment they happen, but you usually are able to do so afterward, so you have faith that you eventually will.
• Purpose: the existence of goals and aims. This is the belief that you are alive in order to do something. Think of purpose as your personal mission statement, such as “the purpose of my life is to share the secrets to happiness” or “I am here to spread love abundantly.”
• Significance: life’s inherent value. This is the sense that your life matters. If you have high levels of significance, you’re confident that the world would be a tiny bit—or perhaps a lot—poorer if you didn’t exist.

Both Frankl’s and Brooks’s summaries may sound a tad abstract. They need examples from our lives, which is where we add in our own content — or create new content. For folks who have been around the block a few times, that new content may include recovering from adversity and doing life and career resets.

Given the readership of the blog, which includes many people who have experienced severe abuse at work and other forms of mistreatment, I’ve repeatedly invoked individuals such as Viktor Frankl and Dr. Edith Eger, another Holocaust survivor who became a trauma therapist, author, and public speaker:

• “After Auschwitz, Viktor Frankl saw only two races” (2017) (link here)
• “Viktor Frankl on finding meaning in the face of great adversity” (2016) (link here)
• “Life lessons from Dr. Edith Eger, Auschwitz survivor” (2018) (link here)
• “Dr. Edith Eger’s The Choice: On trauma and healing” (2017) (link here)

If choice or circumstance finds you leaning more towards reflection than merriment this holiday season, then may it lead to a better and meaningful year to come. For additional food for thought, you might also check out these past cogitations on the meaning of life:

• “Charles Hayes on the ripples of our lives” (2016) (link here)
• “Defining, refining, creating, and redefining your ‘body of work'” (2015) (link here)
• “Holiday reads: Fueling heart, mind, and soul” (2014) (link here)
• “Transitions and inner callings” (2014) (link here)
• “Chris Guillebeau’s advice: Do your own annual review” (2014) (link here)
• “Holiday reflections: The end of limitless possibilities (and that’s good)” (2013) (link here)
• “What is a ‘Ulyssean adult,’ and how can you become one?” (2012) (link here)

 

Developing our 2020 vision

In an opinion piece for the Boston Globe last week (link here), veteran journalist and editor David Shribman speculated on how the momentous events of this year will shape, in one form or another, the rest of our lives. Here’s a good snippet:

It is only June, and so far the crises of the age — along with the diminution of the country’s international profile, the coarsening of the civic debate, the looming bitter election — comprise a page the country has not yet turned. But it’s clear that the year 2020 is a turning point — in public health, in public debate, in public affairs.

“This will be a year that lives eternally in the history books,’’ Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley said in an interview. “The country has a clear election decision, we have to decide whether we will be a global leader or revert to bedrock nationalism, and all the while a pandemic rages and the cities burn. Not since 1968 have things been so decision-fraught. We are going to have to decide what kind of people we are going to be. One way or the other, this year will be remembered as a turning point.”

History is full of turning points, moments when the patterns of human affairs are upended, when great disruptions course through the culture, when tranquility is shattered, assumptions are blown apart, whole ways of thinking and behaving are transformed.

As you can see, Shribman quotes Douglas Brinkley, a prominent American historian who is not one to overuse phrases such as “a year that lives eternally in the history books” and “(w)e are going to have to decide what kind of people we are going to be.”

With what feels like lightning speed, we now find ourselves in a truly momentous time. No wonder so many feel overwhelmed and powerless as individuals.

But let’s look at this differently. During the past few weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of reading, thinking, and talking with folks (via Zoom, FaceTime, and email) about our current state of affairs. I don’t have any great epiphanies as to grand fixes, but I now understand that this pain and tumult provide opportunities to make important changes in our society.

So I find myself asking over and again, how can we, individually and collectively, create our respective visions for making a positive difference in the world?

Speaking personally, I remain devoted to the work that has been motivating me for many years. As I suggested a month ago, workplace bullying, mobbing, and abuse aren’t about to go away because of our experiences of the past few months. So many other labor and employment issues merit our attention as well. As we haltingly return to our physical workspaces, the quest for dignity at work continues.

Of course, there’s much more to address: Global climate change is real, despite the efforts of those who try to deny or obscure the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence. The coronavirus pandemic is teaching us about the vulnerability of our public health systems and economic safety nets. And especially here in America, the current protests prompted by the police killing of George Floyd remind us of the continuing presence of racial injustice and systemic abuse. To name a few.

OK, so individually we cannot do it all, but we can be allies and supporters. And we can help connect these causes together, as part of a working agenda toward a better world.

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Which brings me to folks roughly around my age (late Boomers, early Gen Xers), especially, who are faced with the question of how we will use our remaining productive years. To this consideration I’d like to reintroduce two frames that I’ve discussed before on this blog, legacy work and body of work:

Legacy work

By “legacy work” I mean our core contributions and accomplishments, the stuff we’d like to be remembered for in the longer run and by people we care about. In the realm of vocation, it may involve creative or intellectual work, achievement in business, service to others, building something, activism and social change work, or some type of innovation or invention.

Body of work

Pamela Slim, author of Body of Work: Finding the Thread That Ties Your Story Together (2013), defines her operative term this way:

Your body of work is everything you create, contribute, affect, and impact. For individuals, it is the personal legacy you leave at the end of your life, including all the tangible and intangible things you have created.

Most of us won’t appear in the history books, and so perhaps our stories will go with us, at least beyond our immediate circles of family and friends. However, if we have some ability to define our personal legacy and our body of work, then perhaps we owe ourselves and others some consideration of how we can make the world a better place, given the challenging opportunities before us.

Dear reader, I won’t try to prescribe that path for you, but I hope these thoughts will help to prompt your way. After all, we sometimes have more power than we think we have. There’s no better time to utilize it than now.