The free-market economy has made life comfortable for many of us; it has also opened up choices that did not seem to exist before. This sounds great, but it does not explain why we are bamboozled by a frenzied world that we have created for ourselves. Our computers keep us occupied, and while we soar through cyberspace, burglar alarms and insurance papers ‘mind’ our homes. As our kids take refuge in the relative comfort of their surrogate mother, the idiot box, and electronic gadgets, it is all a new mad, mad world out there—a world of transient community, also fleeting, relationships.
Writes noted social philosopher Charles Handy in his insightful book, The Hungry Spirit, “We are confused by the consequences of capitalism, whose contribution to our well-being cannot be questioned, but which divides rich from poor, consumes so much of the energies of those who work in it, and does not, it seems, always lead to a more contented world. I know of no better economic system. Nevertheless, the new fashion of turning everything into a business, even our own lives, doesn’t seem to be the answer. A hospital, or my life, is more than just a business.”
Confusion & Hunger
We are confused and hungry for something other than the excitement offered by the hunt for wealth and power institutionalised by our society. Such a hunger helps us to re-examine the role of work in our lives; we discover what we were truly meant to do and to be. This is a clarion call that asks us to find purpose in the journey we take, rather than focusing on the profit motive alone. To place the perspective in Handy’s own words:
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