When Work is Love Made Visible
Kahlil Gibran said that work is love made visible.
But work isn’t always love made visible.
Sometimes work is guilt made visible, or force made visible, or procrastination made visible. (I doubt I’m the only person who wonders why laundry becomes so much more interesting to do, when it is actually time to fill out a tax return.)
So it gives me perspective to ask, what IS the work that makes love visible right now; and am I doing that work? Or, am I doing busywork instead, or work that is driven by inner fears, or work that is not mine to do?
It comes down in the end to action — to what is being made real in the world. We articulate our values, organize our thoughts, and set up our systems so they can lead us to action: to the work that makes love visible.
How Your Work Becomes “Love Made Visible”
Own Your Work
Owning your work is about making it voluntary, in the sense that you’re intentional about it. This can apply to paid work as well as unpaid work. When you own your work, you decide, “How am I going to show up today?”
A woman, who described herself as an introvert, told me one of the hardest parts of her corporate job was making phone calls. One day she decided to write out her intentions for a call she was anxious about making. She took out an index card and wrote down the good things that she hoped would happen for both her and her client, through the phone call she was about to make. She wrote down how she wanted to show up for that call. This worked so well she made it into a personal practice. This is a direct example of how writing about our values and intentions can lead us to meaningful action.
Sometimes owning your work takes some radical re-framing. Household tasks are painful and unloving when you come at them from a place of perfectionism and judgment. Many people also have a history of abuse, where the work done in the house where they grew up, was grounded in coercion and cruelty. It is hard to carry all that in your mind and heart, and feel neutral, let alone good, about doing the dishes.
I love how the therapist KC Davis reframes household chores as “care tasks.”
Davis is a therapist whose videos and writing are a lifeline for people in states of overwhelm and crisis, when it comes to the unpaid care tasks we do to sustain ourselves. She re-frames care tasks as ways to show yourself love, to make love visible in your home environment in a healing and life-giving way.
Align Your Work with Your Values
When we do work that comes from our values, we work with love. We bring into the world, we realize, we make real, our values and ideas. Values and ideas on the page or in your head have no impact if they remain invisible.
The key result to look for, from keeping a personal framework, is what effect this activity has on what you actually make real in the world.
In my own personal framework, I wrote about how important my family and friends are to me. But I was not actually keeping in touch with them very well. Because I reviewed that every week, confronting that idea regularly, I started wondering about what I could do to live out that value.
Staying connected with family and friends is a value I want to make real, and not just keep in the realm of good intentions. So I started doing some work to make my love for my family and friends visible.
I’m getting better about contacting people regularly and keeping in touch. Some like texts, some prefer phone calls, sometimes I send postcards. This is work. It is also an expression of love.
Align Your Work with Your Gifts or Callings
Sometimes we have gifts and ideas that we are afraid of sharing, afraid of making public, afraid to make real in the world. We are perhaps afraid of being judged and found wanting by others, or even worse, judged by ourselves and found wanting (e.g. “What if I am not actually very good at this?”).
We may want to write, or make art, or coach, or perform, or start a small business, or otherwise put our work made from love out into the world; but it also feels risky.
This is work that requires real courage and patience. Actually doing this work and daring to share it also makes love visible.
Do What Is Yours To Do; and Then Stop
Some work is busywork, a form of procrastination from the real work, often also the slower work, that makes love visible.
And some work is not actually yours to do. It is not always loving to do others’ work for them. It may take a child a long time to learn to tie her own shoes. But it is important that she knows how to do this herself.
It is tempting to do things for other people when we are convinced that our way is faster, better, more effective; but it robs others of opportunities for learning and growth and the pride of accomplishment. It’s been a long learning curve for me to step back and let others do their own work.
And often I’ve been humbled and gratified to learn that others actually knew some cool — okay, okay, better — ways to get things done, that I did not know.
Or that others knew that some work that I was convinced was necessary, was actually busywork that could be dropped.
When I step back and let others do their work, they often teach me better ways to understand my own.
And that is love made visible, too.
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References
A quote by Kahlil Gibran (no date). Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/69159-work-is-love-made-visible-and-if-you-can-t-work (Accessed: 8 June 2022). (Note that he follows up by saying that if work isn’t love made visible, you’re better off becoming a beggar.)
KC Davis (no date). Available at: https://www.strugglecare.com (Accessed: 8 June 2022).
Resources
If household tasks are a burdensome source of guilt or shame for you, check out the work of K.C. Davis.
On TikTok: @domesticblisters
Book: Davis, K.C. (2022) How to keep house while drowning: a gentle approach to cleaning and organizing. First Simon Element hardcover edition. New York, NY: Simon Element.
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If you need some encouragement to create that thing you want to make, but don’t feel ready to make — check out these books below, which are not just for artists:
Austin Kleon
Kleon, A. (2012) Steal like an artist: 10 things nobody told you about being creative. New York: Workman Pub. Co.
Kleon, A. (2014) Show your work! 10 ways to share your creativity and get discovered. New York, NY: Workman Publishing Company.
Beth Pickens
Pickens, B. (2021) Make your art no matter what: moving beyond creative hurdles. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.