Work Is a Very Serious Matter

David Whyte knows whereof he speaks when it comes to the meaning of “work.” He has been bringing poetry to the corporate world for decades, and challenging people to deepen their understanding and practice of the work they do.

Work is a very serious matter indeed. We freight our work with meaning and identity, and fight hard and long for some kind of purpose in our endeavours. Vocation can never be defined solely by the organization for which we currently work, though it should be the beneficiary of our best powers. Vocation is a moveable, often unspeakable frontier, between what we want for ourselves and what the world demands of us. It is this interior foundation married to the necessities of the outer world that make up a life’s work. Organizations need to understand this wellspring of human creativity in order to shape conversations that are invitational to an individual’s greater powers. The insights available to us through good poetry can provide a compelling vision, grant needed courage and stir the dormant imagination of individuals and organizations alike. …………….~ David Whyte

David is all about the third frontier between you and the world, or what he calls the conversational nature of reality (http://davidwhyte.com/media.html).

Working Together We shape our self to fit this world and by the world are shaped again. The visible and the invisible working together in common cause, to produce the miraculous. I am thinking of the way the intangible air passed at speed round a shaped wing easily holds our weight. So may we, in this life trust to those elements we have yet to see or imagine, and look for the true shape of our own self, by forming it well to the great intangibles about us. — David Whyte  (The House of Belonging) 

He also has a deep and compassionate understanding of human nature, in general.

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