Finding The Time to Reflect, Regenerate

Originally published in March 2009.

A colleague recently recommended that I leave work immediately and go straight to yoga class. Or better yet, in the spirit of Lent, sit in front of a tabernacle and take a number of very deep breaths.

It’s been that kind of winter in the New York Metro area. But as soot-strewn foreheads whizzed around Grand Central on Ash Wednesday, and friends joked that they’d already “given up” their jobs, there seemed to be a communal urge towards something different, something higher, something apart from the gloom and doom that has characterized the last several months.

There also appeared to be some solace in the prospect of reflection and regeneration that Christian traditions urge at this time of year; and, more broadly, that the transitional time from winter to spring tends to bring.

But here’s the critical question: who has time to reflect and regenerate? As much as I would have liked to take my co-worker’s advice, I was overwhelmed by the hundreds of obligations spinning around my mind. The spinning became even more crazed when I considered this frightening job market, where I am simply grateful to arrive at a place of employment every morning. A certain phone call only could be made during the early afternoon. The client progress update needed to receive sign-off before 4pm. If the strategy document didn’t get out to FedEx, our much-coveted new business prospect would not be as sure a bet. Etcetera, ad infinitum.

I’m fairly certain I am not alone in this mental whirlwind. I also have noticed among my peers an increasing willingness to bite the bullet, come early and stay late. We have acknowledged that the once-heralded concept of “work-life balance” has gone the way of the dinosaurs – which was always the case in finance, but now affects all fields. If you want to keep your job, you better get ready to work harder than you’ve ever worked before. As one friend pithily commented: “It’s an employer’s market. Deal with it.”

Contrast this remark with a recent special report on CNN, which chronicled a group of college seniors trying to jump into an abysmal job market. Among the diverse students interviewed, a striking number have decided to take a year to do something they “really want to do,” such as service trips abroad, Teach for America, or local non-profit work in fields of interest. Aware that previous aspirations to cash “a sweet signing bonus” are down the drain, these students are realigning their expectations – and perhaps shifting their values – towards what they feel might really matter. So there, corporate employers.

While it would be impractical and unwise for many of us burning the candle on both ends to have a similar “so there” moment, there is still a valid takeaway from these college seniors. The brave new world of a marketplace we currently are confronting likely will mean brave new ideas concerning how we can maximize our value as contributors to economic and civil society.

Wall Street while I was in college – a very short 5 years ago – was the coveted prize for collegiate “winners”: those connected or savvy enough to jump into an analyst role at Lehman or Citi or Merrill. Even in high school at Greenwich Academy (especially in high school at GA), many peers already knew that their one goal throughout college would be to become a banker and to join the 24/7 culture of downtown Manhattan.

I think that students will be compelled to make different choices this year, as CNN has shown. They probably will be similarly motivated next year, and the year after, too. A broader range of career choices may not always allow for the time to stop, reflect and regenerate; but they will, I think, provoke serious questions about personal and corporate values, what’s worth it and what’s not, and how we all can work our way through the quicksand of economic distress.

If members of the future generation are considering these questions as we speak, I would imagine they are seeking out some inspirational role models to help them discover the answers. Maybe it’s time to peel away from the keyboard and find the tabernacle after all.

Christina Ciocca grew up in Darien and graduated from Greenwich Academy. She works in communications and public relations at The Dilenschneider Group in New York City.