Author:

Karen Schultz

Tags:

business psychology, existential, existential psychology, Frankl, meaning, psychology

 

Paper description:

Article on Working Life With Frankl, Camus, McGregor, etc.

"There have always been people for whom a cause was fused together with their working lives. Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa could serve as examples. Asking such people what their work means to them, or how they think their careers will take shape, would distinguish the work from the cause and from themselves in such an artificial way that there would be no point at all in asking.
This is an analogue to Viktor Frankl's distinction between self-actualization and self-transcendence. ... "

Author's own comment:

From the article: "... For Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa, work is meaning and is therefore certainly not separate from the person or from an object or project. Self-transcendence seems to be the key word, and ironically enough, work as a theme is not really explicitly interesting.
If we nevertheless take work as a theme, we do so with a view towards the concrete daily life that unfolds in our cultural surroundings. Most of us have a job, we work many hours each day on average, and – perhaps most importantly – some of us attempt to realize ourselves through our work in such a way that it becomes a goal in itself. ..."