Finding Meaning in Pushing the Stone

Image by Xavier Turpain from Pixabay

If you have had even a passing encounter with a professional development seminar, you have likely heard of S.M.A.R.T. goals. The purpose of a S.M.A.R.T. goal is to increase the likelihood that you will reach your goal by making it SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE, ACHIEVABLE, REALISTIC AND TIME-BASED. But what about scenarios where the outcome is beyond our control and not guaranteed? Who do we become when we can’t be sure our travails will end the way we hoped or at all?

“We’re so used to measuring things in results,” said documentary filmmaker Julia Loktev. In her latest documentary, My Undesirable Friends, one of the independent Russian journalists she interviews tells her, “I like the story of Sisyphus, but I don’t think of him as a victim. I think he finds meaning in pushing the stone.”

It seems unfair to refer to these tasks as D.U.M.B. goals, and perhaps the effort can lead to a desired outcome even if it’s not the intended outcome.

In her book The Way of Integrity, Martha Beck uses a different mythical story to challenge the reader to remain whole even when the outside world is pushing them to be or do something else. 

In Dante’s Divine Comedy, Dante follows Virgil through the Inferno, Purgatory and into Paradise. At each stage, Dante can only progress when he changes himself and leaves his surroundings and fellow travelers behind. He reaches paradise when he achieves and practices integrity. 

Referring back to the Latin word integer meaning “intact,” Beck encourages the reader to determine what factors, beliefs and actions bring them in and out of integrity. “To be in integrity is to be one thing, whole and undivided.”

For both Sisyphus and Dante, they lack the ability to alter their environment, so their purpose transcends the external results and becomes an internal practice of developing their character and values. Reaching the finishing line is secondary.

What I like most about this perspective (when I remember to use it) is that it creates a touchstone for understanding what is within my sphere of influence, and what is not. 

That’s not to suggest this is easy. It demands dialectic thinking, a term a colleague just introduced to me. Finding meaning in pushing the stone requires us to hold two thoughts at once. “Success is not promised.” AND “I’m going to keep going.”

Questions to reflect on:

• What meaning can you find in the work itself?

  
  

• What do you want to keep intact regardless of whether you reach your goal?

  
  

• What are a couple “and” statements to refer to? EXAMPLE: “This is [BLANK] and I will [BLANK].