Work That Matters: Create a Livelihood That Reflects Your Core Intention

So many of us feel trapped in wage slavery and deadened to our true talents and life’s purpose. Or we’ve wandered through dozens of jobs and are left feeling adrift and without meaning in our lives. Livelihood is a source of great suffering for way too many.

Author and longtime meditator Maia Duerr wandered through several professions and dozens of jobs (including alfalfa sprout packer and Buddhist chaplain) before she finally unlocked a combination of work that was deeply fulfilling and sustainable. These experiences provided her with rich material to examine the emotional, psychological, and cultural barriers to creating work that expressed her life’s core intention, what she calls “Liberation-Based Livelihood.”

Work is one of the primary vehicles for expressing our deepest selves. Using the 6 Keys to Liberation-Based Livelihood as a framework, Duerr takes readers through a comprehensive process that can lead to breakthroughs and positive reformulation of their careers. Mindfulness practice is an invaluable tool in the process of gaining new perspective. Work That Matters gives you the tools to create joyful work that embodies love and compassion—for yourself, and for the whole world.

Throughout her life, Maia Duerr has been passionate about pursuing the question, "How can I create right livelihood?" She has served as Research Director of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society and Director of the Upaya Zen Center Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program--among many other jobs, ranging from alfalfa sprout packer to anthropologist to Buddhist chaplain--to finally realize what she calls "Liberation-Based Livelihood." She defines this as livelihood that is an expression of your life's Core Intention. Duerr has an MA in Cultural Anthropology from the California Institute of Integral Studies and currently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She blogs at The Liberated Life Project.