A job is never just a job. It is always connected to a deep and invisible process of finding meaning in life through work.

In Thomas Moore's groundbreaking book Care of the Soul, he wrote of "the great malady of the twentieth century ... the loss of soul." That bestselling work taught readers ways to cultivate depth, genuineness, and soulfulness in their everyday lives, and became a beloved classic. Now, in A Life's Work, Moore turns to an aspect of our lives that looms large in our self-regard, an aspect by which we may even define ourselves - our work. The workplace, Moore knows, is a laboratory where matters of soul are worked out. A Life's Work is about finding the right job, yes, and it is also about uncovering and becoming the person you were meant to be.

Moore reveals the quest to find a life's work in all its depth and mystery. All jobs, large and small, long-term and temporary, he writes, contribute to your life's work. A particular job may be important because of the emotional rewards it offers or for the money. But beneath the surface, your labors are shaping your destiny for better or worse. If you ignore the deeper issues, you may not know the nature of your calling, and if you don't do work that connects with your deep soul, you may always be dissatisfied, not only in your choice of work but in all other areas of life. Moore explores the often difficult process - the obstacles, blocks, and hardships of our own making - that we go through on our way to discovering our purpose, and reveals the joy that is our reward. He teaches us patience, models the necessary powers of reflection, and gives us the courage to keep going.

A Life's Work is a beautiful rumination, realistic and poignant, and a comforting and exhilarating guide to one of life's biggest dilemmas and one of its greatest opportunities.

Just three hundred years ago alchemists like England's John Dee tended a small furnace in their smoky, cluttered laboratory watching closely and patiently for signs of progress. They were seeking medicines, elixirs, and the secret of eternal youth. In their laboratories they had a precious collection of antique books that held the secrets to the process, a tiny oratory with altar and prie-dieu, so they could pray for success, and an oversize record book that served as a log for the experiments they conducted.

For thousands of years, in China and India and later in Europe, men and women alchemists tried to sort out the meaning of life through this exotic system of chemical changes and exotic interpretations. They used a variety of substances - liquids and solids, pure stuff and rotten stuff, ordinary material they found around them and more refined chemicals. They put the material into special vessels, some of them intricate and beautiful glass shapes. They subjected the raw stuff, the prima materia, to various levels and periods of heat. All the while they consulted their ancient books and carefully observed changes in color and texture and thought of these changes as images for developments in their hearts and lives.

For some alchemists the goal didn't seem as important as the process. They had special retorts - odd-shaped glass vessels - that would transfer the processed material back into the initial vessel, and they would start all over with their furnaces, books, and notepads, observing further refinements. Some were clearly aiming at a material goal - gold. Others were hoping for a more ethereal and spiritual goal: the making of a self or a soul.

The entire process - not just the finished product - was known as the "opus." The word means "work," and was often capitalized to distinguish it from the more ordinary sense of the word. The "Work" was the long process of refining raw material, going through many phases identified by colors- blackening, whitening, reddening, yellowing - and reaching an end point described variously as a peacocks tail, the philosopher's stone, or the elixir of immortality.

Alchemists used arcane images for the various aspects of the Work, sometimes drawn from religion and mythology, or else their own code. Perhaps they were crying to keep the mysterious Work hidden from those who might profane it - there was often a sense of secrecy about occult practices throughout the centuries. Or maybe they were trying to operate at two levels simultaneously: the mundane and the spiritual. The great mysteries of life are often expressed in rich and sometimes extravagant imagery.

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Copyright © 2008 by Thomas Moore.

Tags: Business Life, Psychology & Psychiatry

About the Author

Thomas Moore, Ph.D., wrote the phenomenal #1 bestsellers Care of the Soul and SoulMates as well as many other successful books. Moore was a Catholic monk for twelve years and later became a psychotherapist, earning degrees in theology, musicology, and religion. Moore now lectures extensively throughout North America. More