Emerging New Stories of Work: What Comes After The “Default Path”?

For the past five years, I (Paul Millerd) have been self-employed and been writing about my personal experiments with work and life and about the hundreds of conversations I’ve had with people from around the world carving their own path.  A lot of this evolved into a book, The Pathless Path, which I recently published in January 2022.

In that book I describe the “default path,” which I define as the standard story most of us grow up with that describes what an adult is supposed to do to be seen as a successful adult.  These scripts emerged side by side with the industrial economy, but have become rigid and incomplete as our economy—and world—shifts.

Building on many of the themes I discuss in the book, I want to explore some of the deeper stories that underlie many people’s relationship to work and explore the new ones that are emerging and to dare to imagine where we are headed.

In this salon, we will explore:

• The different stories of work we grew up with
• Embarking on unconventional paths
• Finding the others and its role in sustaining unconventional paths
• The challenges of experimenting with life paths
• The role of creating online in helping craft a meaningful life
• The new stories of work that are emerging out of spaces such as Interintellect

Reading List:

• Paul’s book: The Pathless Path – Chapter 3 especially (e-mail or DM for a gifted copy)
• Exploration of the present & past of work by Ana Codrea-Rado
• Paul’s thread on the different reality on a self-employed path
• John Vervaeke on Luther, Calvin & Work (starts at 25:00)
• Optional books: Fromm’s Escape From Freedom, Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide To Getting Lost, David Whyte’s The Heart Aroused and The Three Marriages, Amy McMillen’s Reclaiming Control, and Josef Pieper’s Leisure: The Basis of Culture

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