Spotlight on CLAL
To access the Spotlight on CLAL Archives, click here.
IRWIN KULA LEADS PRE-EMINENT BUSINESS ORGANIZATION’S RETREAT
In February, Irwin Kula was
invited by Chicago’s Young President’s Organization (YPO), a premier network
of global business leaders, to be the Resident Resource (Scholar in
Residence) at their Aspen retreat. The group of about 36 presidents and
chief executives gathered to explore how to find a better balance between
work and life.
Meeting over three days, Rabbi Kula led the group in a series of workshops
looking at the key areas of life work, family, and leisure and the time
each claimed. He stressed that there is no such thing as perfect balance,
and that we live in a space between the balance we yearn for and the balance
we get. “Balance is not a noun, it’s a verb,” he warned, “it is an ongoing
process and not a place we reach.”
Throughout the three days, he focused on the relationship between finding
balance and honestly taking responsibility for our choices. Several points
he made were:
1. We have two deep yearnings surrounding this issue that are already reflected in two different Creation stories in the Book of Genesis. We yearn to accomplish, master, succeed, achieve…and we yearn to simply relate, to be, to love. These two yearnings pull at us in different ways at different times throughout our lives. Both are central to our full humanness.
2. When it feels like things are out of balance, it is an invitation to grow and develop in self-awareness and understanding. The process may generate feelings of anger, guilt, confusion, and frustration, but these feelings are just triggers that provide more information about the person.
3. As heads of major companies, we have the power and choice to do what we want, and take control of our time. We can’t say, ‘I have to work late,’ as if someone else is in control. Taking responsibility for our choice is the first step to getting a handle on balance of life issues. The choice may not be conscious, but the hard truth is that for a variety of unexamined reasons, we may prefer to be at work than at home.
4. It is important to admit that the psychic gratification from work may be greater than from home. Until this realization, we won’t find balance. This is a call to honesty about the choices made and the beginning of wisdom.
5. Once candid, we can begin to look at the underlying issues around why life is out of balance: fear of intimacy, old wounds, professional concerns, desires for status, resentments around parental love, and personal insecurities. Through honest attention, the issues rise to the surface.
For many in the group, the
sessions challenged their notions about themselves an experience which was
enlightening. Participants spent a lot of time looking at the explanations
and rationalizations they used to explain their choices. They became more
conscious of the decisions they made, and how those decisions, while having
gotten them to be successful business people, have also been elaborate
constructions to avoid uncomfortable truths.
“We tell ourselves stories to preserve a self-image and to avoid certain
painful truths,” said Rabbi Kula. ”We say something like, ‘I work hard, I
try to spend time with my family, when do I get time for myself?’ as if work
and family are selfless. We create a picture of ourselves as victims or
powerless, of our work being a responsibility we take on for our family, and
that they should never complain. These pictures/stories so often sort around
an axis of self-pity or guilt, self-aggrandizement or blame.”
He continued, “These stories are the ways we avoid taking responsibility and
acknowledging that whatever we do is our choice, and whether knowingly or
unknowingly, these choices are self-gratifying. The self is present in all
arenas home, family, work not just one. How we choose to show up and
experience the different arenas is up to us.”
A variety of resources were used to stimulate conversation including
Biblical stories, rabbinic texts, and contemporary wisdom traditions.
By the end of the sessions, many participants said they had a greater
insight into their lives, and saw that they had the freedom and
responsibility to make changes. As the CEOs of their lives they recognized
that they had the power to always be shifting the balance to create more
satisfying and richer lives.
To access the Spotlight on CLAL Archives, click here.
To receive the Spotlight on CLAL column by email on a regular basis, complete the box
below:
