The Spritual Limits of Career Advancement

گفت كه تو شمع شدى قبله اين جمع شدى

جمع نيم شمع نيم دود پراكنده شدم

He said you have become a candle, the beacon of this group

I am not group, I’m not candle, I’m scattered smoke

كه مراد، مريد مريد خويش ميشود. 

And the desired one would desire her desirer.

Those pursuing traditional jobs are bound by the certain rules of the corporations / societies / customer satisfaction / managing up / managing down / etc.

If I tried to paraphrase what our dear Kabir said last night I’d write it as above. This notion of the reality of the time made me pause and ponder: Careers are governed by the rules of the majority. And majority wants the world a certain way. And majority has proven time and again that their way is not necessarily Devine. Mind you the execution of Socrates, the crusade of Jesus, the martyrdom of Hossein, the World War II, the collapse of 2007.

Careers impose written, and mostly unwritten, contractual terms on you. When to wake up. How to dress. How to talk. What to read. Where to be at certain times of the day, week, month. What to eat. When to eat. With whom to eat. How to talk. What to say. To whom to say what.

Career advancement comes only after certain terms of those people-written/unwritten rules were satisfied in a certain way within a certain time. Hence, career advancement tolls you beyond “work”. It tolls your whole being, your character, your likes and dislikes, your mind occupations, your hourly presence, even your words. It forces you into a mold. It molds you to a certain shape and form that may not necessarily align with your best self.

كه اشتهار خلق بند محكم است

در ره اين از بند آهن كى كم است؟

Being famous resembles a tight rope

In the Path this rope is nothing less than an iron chain

The toll that the career puts on you won’t be all evil and wrong. There are several virtues practiced most definitely and sometimes most painfully at work and the result is growth. Virtues such as respect, patience, promise keeping. These too put a toll on you but to make you better.

I certainly needed to work and be aspired by career advancement in my twenties and even so far in my thirties, to learn. I better learned how to curb my enthusiasm because I worked, how to phrase my words in aspiration to be impeccable with them. I learned patience. I learned acceptance. I practiced respect. I practiced adaptability. And thank the Divine if I have attained morsels of such virtues.

However, I have a feeling that the achievement of such practice may reach a ceiling in such situation. I feel it sometimes already. But not frequent enough. I suspect though that if the frequency of feeling tethered and limited by the laws of career advancement reach a certain level I may need to pivot. I may pivot to stop career advancement, or stop career all together.

Perhaps my desire, to the extent of restlessness, to earn higher degrees stem in this prediction. I aspire to attain my PhD in a less “brainy” topics. Meaning not engineering. But perhaps philosophy, or management, or psychology.

And I pray that when the time comes, when the limit is reached, when the mold became too tight, I realize it.

Yaa Baseer

PS: poems from Masnavi of Molana Rumi