The Real Work

and usual preamble

Preamble

This week marks my return to work at HDepot after a six-month hiatus, a busy transition that’s left me pondering the search for meaning in work and life. I’ve always found it challenging to settle; perhaps that’s why I’ve moved from career to career, drawn by the promise of something new. The real value, I think, lies in navigating the obstacles along the road or river—learning from the struggle and letting it give the journey purpose.

To help frame these thoughts, I’m sharing Wendell Berry’s poem “The Real Work.” It speaks to the beauty found in uncertainty, in getting lost, and in finding our path among the rocks that make life—and work—sing.

The Real Work

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind, - that is not baffled - is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Wendell Berry

May the river sing for you.

Till next week