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What is your “Great Work”?

Or… Is your current work Great? (Check the questionnaire)

Are you doing what you should be doing? Does it make sense that all of us should be working on Great things? How can we find out?

The Atlas of Worldly Wisdom is – in a sense – a guide that aims to help the learner find and pursue their own “Great Work”.

In management, as should be the case in life, we frequently think about the most that can be achieved given the limited resources available to us (Optimization).

So the question is : What is our great work? How can we find it?

Great Work : Subjective and ‘Wicked’

The Great Work, starting with the optimization description above, is typically the best that someone can do, given their resources and circumstances (this includes background – genetic, social, economic, and cultural).

Although many people say “I’m happy with what I’ve done”, the above statement is still too tricky…

Finding your great work is somehow a “wicked” problem. The quest is difficult to define and recursive in nature, because as you define it, it keeps changing.

Think about it: What is your Great Work now? This very moment…

The answer would be: To first decide to identify and seek a Great Work in life.

It is quite surprising how many people have just given up on this.

Your Great Work(Now) = (Intent) to create the Great Work , You will then either chose Knowledge (Awareness [Best Case]) or Action (Creativeness [Best Case])

From then on, it is an act of balancing knowledge, plans & vision, and actions to maximize achievement… Maximize understanding and unique creativity.

The Atlas of Worldly Wisdom
The Atlas of Worldly Wisdom : Seeking Integration

In this post, I will try to reflect on conditions and themes that help define this concept of “Great Work”… Hopefully convincing you that going on such a quest is a worthwhile – and achievable – task.

Caution: Naturally, This has to be somehow philosophical and ‘fuzzy’… Run away now if this makes you uncomfortable.. It is not for everyone. If you decide to continue, reflect on point 8 below.

Clues to find the Great Work

Being based on The Atlas, the points and comments mentioned here are guided by the Awareness-Intent-Creativeness triple spiral, which defines our work as a function of our knowledge, plans, and actions (respectively).

The Great Work is a special case of work… It includes knowledge, planning, vision, creativity, and action components, but has special qualities too. Think of this work as evolution and aspiration of all efforts.

I thought of the following characteristics.

Your Great Work..,.

  1. Is the optimal balancing of Awareness (Knowledge), Intent (Plans), and Creativeness (Actions) in life. It is the ability constantly grow and maximize the worldly impact of each of these spirals.
  2. Is the most (Useful, Creative) thing you can build.*
  3. Is the Great Integration of Everything you’ve ever done… It is the one work that combines all your small achievements into one whole… as much as possible.
  4. Is your act of creation that expands your knowledge and readiness, and your active exploration that produces something (good, beautiful, true) in the world.
  5. Integrates your most exalted morals and values with your daily experiences and desires.
  6. Is a continuous sharpening and focus so that you can clearly get through to as many people who matter as possible.. It is the “maximum transmission”, to those who matter.**
  7. Transforms (with intensity) the time & matter-bound to the transcendent (the beyond)! (and vice versa) – It oversees the birth of beauty, truth, and goodness.
  8. Matters to specific people, as many of them as possible… NOT to everyone. By definition, something insightful and profound can’t be for everyone – otherwise it would be mundane.
  9. Helps you (sneakily) find out who you are ! It also helps others find out who they are. This is an ongoing process, and when it happens (recursively), your definition of what Great Work is will change.

The Great Work Questionnaire

Questionnaire: How Great is your work?

Are you doing great work now?

Ask yourself the following questions, and write a number as an answer for each (1: Strongly Disagree, 2: Disagree, 3: Neutral, 4: Agree, 5: Strongly Agree) on a separate paper.

  1. Does your work blend learning, personal vision, and daily routines that feel good?
  2. Do you produce useful and creative things at work?
  3. Does your current work encompass and utilize all your skills and experiences?
  4. Does your work include learning and growth while producing tangible outcomes?
  5. Does your work reflect your morals and values?
  6. Does your work connect you to people you want to communicate with?
  7. Do you feel that your work connects to “Something Greater” and a “Higher Mission”? Does it help others?
  8. Does your work add value to specific people’s lives in a unique and personal way?
  9. Does your work help you discover things about yourself?

The numbers are not the point. The point is to think about these questions… but to simplify: Sum the numbers that you got from answering the previous nine questions.

If your total score is less than 30, then you have a problem. Life is too short! It might be time to reflect on your work and make sure it aligns better with your values and aspirations… You need more ‘Epic’ (Check out the Atlas as a starting point).

Reflecting on Great Work

There are many acts to admire, but the concept of doing something epic should apply to the individual.

Your life’s work, whatever it is, should be – to you – something great. Something you can take pride in and obsess (healthily) about.

This is why you have to keep asking yourself:

  • What is my story?
  • How does all this integrate?
  • What is the greater thing that I’m serving and creating?
  • What values do I fiercely serve?
  • What is my legacy?

Make sure the answer to these questions is something Epic! It is much better this way! 

Identifying Great Work means that an emergence of sorts is happening… An emergence of meaning from the many little actions and habits of every day. Emergence is a great integration… A meaning-compressing one. By this compression of meaning it allows more bandwidth and progress. 

Our greatest work has always been there, but our ability to say “Look” to the right person is what finalizes and crystallizes it… This is why the “now” moment is so important for creativeness…

Creation happens (is always happening) in it.

Subjective Application

The discussion here, like all Great Work, comes from a very subjective and personal place. This is why I feel I must add a few lines here discussing how all this applies (recursively) to some projects I’ve worked on.

I like to think that I am – everyday – creating my greatest work…

It is still unfinished, and hopefully it will be still unfinished in the last day of my life… because that just means that the processes of learning, creativity, and contribution are still ongoing!

I frequently think about the practical/useful, and about the creative. The Atlas of Worldly Wisdom is my ultimate answer to the Practical/Useful part. I like to think that it answers the question “What should I do now?” for quite a lot of people***.

* This Useful-Creative duality is partly why I feel compelled to oscillate between producing works that are focused on creativity (even “creative about creativity”), like “Passing Clouds“, and “The Mask is the World“, and utility (even “practical about practicality), like The Atlas of Worldly Wisdom. The Prometheus Shot is an attempt to blend both worlds… if that can be done.

** This might be tricky, but try to think of different groups of people that truly benefit from your work…

*** Who is the Atlas for?

More

The Atlas of Worldly Wisdom : A course about achieving levels of peak personal performance and creativeness. It is the tool to make sense of the (so many) super ideas about excellence and growth by integrating them into the Awareness-Intent-Creativeness (AIC) Triple Helix.

The Prometheus Shot : is a platform dedicated to what we can consider “Great and Creative Work”. It looks at amazing works of human creativity, and tries to decipher what makes them relevant to our understanding of the world, innovation, appreciation of beauty, and our everyday efforts.

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