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About Me


In this space, I would like to offer you something new each week - a thought or sentiment that is a response to the correspondence I receive, or that originates from some of my readings. And so...
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION THIS WEEK...
In conversation with a friend who was heartbroken over a break-up, I stated, “Love is that thing between people that often fills the relationship with beautiful meaning but that sometimes doesn’t make any sense at all.” He looked at me solemnly at first, then burst out in a riotous laugh. Evidently my sentiments took him somewhere I plainly didn’t anticipate, and gave him a thread to find some relief, even if only temporarily.
After he settled down somewhat, he took a sip of his beer and fixed me with his steel blue eyes. “That’s the grossest understatement I’ve heard in a long time,” he said. “Of course relationships don’t make any sense!”
His perspective turned out to be quite intriguing, particularly as he revealed the circumstances under which the relationship began. By all accounts, he and his lady friend could have been the worst of enemies given that they worked in a highly competitive field and were the leading executives of staunchly rival firms. How can two CEOs, whose work consists in large part of gaining and maintaining a strategic advantage over the other, suddenly leave their jobs behind at the office and assume a privately intimate rapport as equal collaborators in a household? They somehow managed to succeed for a while nonetheless, as their relationship had the time to grow into a reportedly deeply involved emotional attachment.
“So what happened to destroy your relationship that was different than had happened to create it?”
He took a long time to answer, and it seemed that he choose his words carefully. “The excitement of breaking all the rules at first propelled our affair. We were attracted to each other already, but the element of danger certainly added fuel to the fire.”
“Yes, go on.” I wondered if the danger had vanished, and thus the relationship.
“We were both strong people, with a powerful drive to succeed professionally, and we were fantastic together as long as we kept each other on edge. Then somehow that edge disappeared, and all we were left with is each other.” He hesitated for a moment, then added, “It’s almost as if we were both going to survive as individuals no matter what, and so the only thing that could die was the relationship.”
“Would you have become involved with each other if you were not with rival firms?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.” He stared out into space. “I’m not sure she’s even really my type.” And he burst out laughing again.
I had a critical question for him. “So why are you heartbroken over the break up?”
“Because love sometimes doesn’t make any sense at all,” he answered.
It was the man who spoke those words, not the CEO, and it reminded me that we all too frequently forget that the work we choose do isn’t always a reflection of who we really are. The ideal is that our life and work are harmoniously balanced and synchronistic, as when we have a deep knowledge of our life calling and we are congruently fulfilling our lifework. But reality is often quite different, in that for any number of reasons we allow work to get in the way of life, or life to get in the way of work. They ought to be collaborators in our quest for happiness, yet often they are competitors for our attention.
He looked at me solemnly again, as if he needed to say more. “I don’t know anymore,” he admitted.
“May I ask you another question,” I said, “and don’t feel like you have to answer if you rather not. Would you have become involved with each other if you were not CEOs, if you were just plain Jack and Jill?”
I never got an answer in words, but I learned through further conversation at a later date that he realized his love of power became meaningless after all the success he experienced. He had gotten what he thought he wanted, and it turned out to be much less than he had imagined. In an e-mail weeks later, he wrote, “Work is that thing people do that often feels like it makes total sense, but that sometimes doesn’t have any meaning at all.”
Life and work can both have beautiful meaning in their own right, or can make not sense at all, depending on who you are and what you do, or more importantly, who you really want to be and what you really want to do.
Copyright © 2009, Joseph Civitella. All rights reserved internationally.

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Everyone who is ready and willing to focus on their personal growth, professional development, life calling and lifework.

My Blog

Posting of July 26, 2009

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION THIS WEEK... In a letter to a dear friend, I recently wrote that, Sometimes, even when the truth is spoken with good intentions, it does not necessarily coincide with what othe...
Posted by on Sun, 02 Aug 2009 12:37:00 GMT

Posting of July 19, 2009

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION THIS WEEK... What does love mean?It means different things, depending on the circumstances in which it is defined.But, if love is true, isnt it constant?Yes, it may be c...
Posted by on Sun, 26 Jul 2009 15:52:00 GMT

Posting of July 12, 2009

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION THIS WEEK... Some years ago, in what now appears like another lifetime, I wrote in a note that Laughter is the breath of God.  It struck me as curious that months after writin...
Posted by on Sun, 19 Jul 2009 18:13:00 GMT

Posting of July 5, 2009

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION THIS WEEK... The term outer adult is bandied about more and more often as a complementary descriptor to the commonly-known inner child.  It represents a valiant attempt to d...
Posted by on Sun, 12 Jul 2009 08:07:00 GMT

Posting of June 28, 2009

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION THIS WEEK... That which is not of my world when I awake onto this earth has to be created by my souls imagination as a consequence of the truth that I experience in my life and...
Posted by on Sun, 05 Jul 2009 08:50:00 GMT

Posting of June 14, 2009

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION THIS WEEK... We have created a clock to count the minutes and hours, and as a consequence we believe that we can organize our days and weeks in a manner to control our destiny. ...
Posted by on Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:09:00 GMT

Posting of June 7, 2009

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION THIS WEEK... A point of departure  a new beginning  and we march to an inevitable ending, while somewhere in the middle we wonder, and start to ask of our life who is the auth...
Posted by on Sun, 14 Jun 2009 07:08:00 GMT

Posting of May 31, 2009

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION THIS WEEK... Charles Darwin stated, Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work worthy the interposition of a deity.  More humble and I think truer to consider him created...
Posted by on Sun, 07 Jun 2009 07:07:00 GMT

Posting of May 24, 2009

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION THIS WEEK... Where in the nature of the universe does our essence reside?  Is it in the amorphous depths of our soul  that immensity of wisdom that asks for nothing and yet ans...
Posted by on Sun, 31 May 2009 17:12:00 GMT

Posting of May 17, 2009

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION THIS WEEK... What is your life calling you to do?  And how do you answer that call?  We are in dialogue with our spirit/soul by the way we live our lives and do our work, and to...
Posted by on Sun, 24 May 2009 17:13:00 GMT