This week’s episode is not a story about bad culture or a bad boss, but rather one woman’s journey to align her life with the yearnings of her soul.
Ami spent more than twenty years in academia as an English professor before finding herself at odds with the ethics of the University. But she didn’t opt out of the traditional workforce just yet. Instead, she changed course and went to work for the Social Security administration as a problem solver. She felt aligned with the mission of Social Security and found their management to be responsive and even helpful. In fact, they went to great lengths to retain her by trying to find ways to make her job work for her.
But alas, Ami’s soul was screaming for another direction.
The Great Resignation is about many things, one of which is a subtle consistent shift taking place in our culture. Increasingly, people are opting out of the narrative of job, career, accumulation of wealth, and a comfortable retirement. Ami’s new life as a homesteader in a rural area is anything but easy. It’s hard work, but it’s the kind of work that feeds her soul.
From being a tenured English professor, to a highly trained problem solver for Social Security, to a customer service rep in a Social Security field office, she now works a garden, helps her husband build their homestead, cuts firewood, and lives close to the land.
This is significant. Because Ami is highly educated and worldly. She’s not a young soul trying to figure things out. She stayed the course for decades and came to a place where, as she expressed, “I found myself not feeling like I was able to continue.”
In times past, such thoughts and feelings would be dismissed as silly and irresponsible. But today there is such a thing as a Tiny House Movement, a Homesteading Movement, Minimalism, and a groundswell of people craving more simplicity in life. Money is no longer the thing we all chase.
Layer onto this, that many jobs and company cultures are not oriented around helping people find meaning and joy from their jobs. In fact, the “labor market” as it’s called, is perceived by the captains of industry as a mere component of their businesses. We even have such terminologies as “human capital” and “human resources.” Terms that reduce employees to numbers on a spreadsheet and fails to engender a kind of leadership that values people above all else. Instead, what tends to be valued are those very specific numbers that fall to the very bottom of a spreadsheet — the profit margin.
But culture is ever changing. Enter the Great Resignation.
For all the reasons — from toxic work cultures, prejudice, harassment, less than a living wage, unsafe work conditions, or the yearnings of one’s soul — people are leaving.
The implications are fascinating and exciting, because businesses cannot exist without people. They will have to figure it out.
The visionary leaders and innovative companies of the future will provide safe, enriching, meaningful work environments that give people a reason to want to keep showing up day after day.
In the past, few people would leave lucrative careers to follow their soul’s yearning. Ami is one of many courageous individuals who have done just that. Her and others are paving the way, providing validation and even encouragement to those still immersed in the traditional workforce.
I feel excited for the future and inspired by the stories we’re sharing here at the Great Resignation Uncensored.
We hope you’ll continue reading, listening, and sharing.
Ep. 3 - A Crisis of the Soul