What a country!

Do you know Yakov Smirnoff? He’s a comedian who does this great bit, “Only in America…” about coming from the Soviet Union and finding all the “great” things here.1

Some of his best bits:

• “Only in America… can pizza get to your house faster than the ambulance can.”

• “Only in America… lemonade is made with artificial flavoring and dish soap is made with real lemons.”

• “Only in America... do people order double cheese burgers, large fries… and a diet Coke.”

• “Only in America... do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.”

I was thinking about Yakoff this week when I came upon this:

“Too many people bring the best of themselves to work, and bring the leftovers home.” — Esther Perel

Only in America, do people place work at the center of their lives. Only in America do people rely on it for their self worth and meaning. I internally roll my eyes whenever I see yet another consultant/presentation/book around finding “purpose.” This emphasis on finding purpose in work doesn’t exist any place else. On your own travels, have you been in any other country where people are trying to self-actualize through work? It sounds absurd when it’s written out.

From the outside, this American ideal that you should have a purposeful job2 is simply capitalism getting employees to work more, for less pay because, well, you “love the mission/job.” Many people tell me they’re disillusioned with their jobs because it’s not their “purpose.” On the other side, others tell me that they love their job so much they “would do it for free.”

I’ve never heard is anywhere else. What a country, workers are happy to work for less!

Relying on work as our core state of being leads to dissatisfaction and burnout, of course. I had a FF1 student last week write about feeling uneasy about not accomplishing anything in a day, which they have come to understand as “part of the cultural programming around deriving self-worth via ‘productivity=value’ (i.e. internalized capitalism).” Only in America do people feel valued only when they’re productive. 3

Ask people in Spain, or Thailand, or most any place else if they found their “purpose” and you’re going to get a befuddled stare or a pitying laugh. Isn’t the point of life simply to enjoy with those you love?

What a country! Only in America do give our best selves to work and bring the leftovers home. Only in America do we strip-mine connection to nature and community and replace it with achievement and purpose.

“Without a visceral connection to the soul of nature, we will not know how to love or respect our own soul. Instead, we try various means to get God and people to accept us instead of experiencing radical belonging to the world itself. We’re trying to say to ourselves and others, “I belong here. I matter.” Of course, that’s true! But contrived and artificial means will never achieve that divine purpose.” — Father Richard Rohr

By filling ourselves up with things that don’t satisfy, we’re still hungry. Jesus said,

“Do not work for food that spoils” — John 6:27

We spend so much of our lives inflating our egos. Which is your particular poison?

• “Achieving,” “advancing,” “leading”

• Being “smart,” or “capable”

• Pleasing others, being “good,” being “helpful,” or being on the “right side”

All of it spoils.4 We’ve confused our primary and our secondary satisfactions.

One of the things we talk about in the work that I do is that we need to restore what I call primary satisfaction. The things that we evolved with over hundreds of thousands of years that satisfy the soul at the most basic level; adequate levels of touch, you know, comfort in times of sorrow and loss, celebration and gratitude, gathering food together, eating together under the stars, telling stories around the campfire, you know, laughing and playfulness together, sensuous erotic connection to the wider world. These are what made us human. But for the most part these things have disappeared. Now, we are left with secondary satisfactions— material goods, seeking power, rank, prestige, addictions— and these things never satisfy the soul. — Francis Weller

We give the best of ourselves to work, and bring the leftovers home. We fill ourselves up with achievement and purpose and are left still feeling hungry. Leftovers won’t do. Our souls need the nutrition of touch and laughter, of communion and the easy sense that we’re seen. We need to know that we belong to each other, no matter what.

Only love will fill the cup.