Toni Morrison’s Advice for a Purposeful Work Life
She recalled the wise words of her father
I’ve been writing a lot lately about the Great Resignation. This past week alone, I’ve spoken to psychologists and management professors, recruiters and therapists. And, of course, people who have quit their jobs. In all these conversations, I’ve picked out a recurring theme: purpose.
This is what literally everyone has told me: that the pandemic threw us off our autopilot hamster wheels and triggered introspection. Introspection being, of course, the archnemesis of corporate America. Many people, particularly in that mid-career sweet spot of age 30–45, have come to realize that they don’t want their lives to revolve around work. Or at the very least, not this work.
In a twist of creepy serendipity — or algorithmic stalking —the New Yorker’s algorithm suggested yesterday that I read this 2017 essay by the late, great Toni Morrison. In it, she recounts a childhood job cleaning house for a wealthy white woman. (“In those days, the forties, children were not just loved or liked; they were needed.”). Morrison describes the initial pleasure she took from becoming better at the job, and at contributing to the household’s needs by giving her mother half of her earnings. And then, the eventual frustration of being asked to do more and more by her…
