Epilogue

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) discovered that problems at work are more strongly associated with (mental) health complaints than are any other life stressor―more so than financial or family problems. Furthermore, according to the NIOSH, job stress occurs when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of employees, leading to poor health and injury. Moreover, job stress is often unjustly confused with challenge, which energizes us, psychologically and physically, and motivates us to learn new skills and master our jobs.

According to the Convention of the Americas on Human Rights (Organization of American States, 1978), “The right to vocational training does not only contribute to the shaping of decent work… but it is educationally a formative element in people’s lives, an instrument for the enrichment, self-fulfillment and development of individuals, and through them, of society at large.… This higher—truly superior—dimension of training is expressed in paragraph 4 of article 1 of International Labour Convention 142 (1975) on

the Development of human rights.… There will be no decent work without democracy, social justice and citizenship. And there will be none of those without education, vocational training included.”

All this corroborates the fact that employee satisfaction is a cornerstone of self-actualization in raising productivity and that job stress, job failure, and mutual distrust in organizations have far-reaching consequences as well as deeper causes. The latter refers to the motives behind inequitable workplace practices such as lack of intrinsic motivation, opportunity for growth, job security, candid communication, participation, and coherence. Adding to the problem are excessive workload demands, conflicting roles and expectations, unpleasant or dangerous working conditions, and corruption.

The different international forms of cooperation, freedom of speech and of the press, the Internet, multilateralism, and the ability to get the local Chamber of Commerce, trade and labor unions, as well as other nongovernmental organizations involved in the executive branch have not contributed to a better world in this purview.

Those were initially my thoughts and reasons to choose another viewpoint in writing this in-depth treatise—an attempt to disentangle the underlying in-the-box thinking that results in the present state of personal, business, and world affairs. It is also an attempt to find a culture-free remedy in order to shift this guilty paradigm in creating work-life synergy. In conclusion, this disentanglement and remedy were implemented using five methods:

a) by addressing how civilization and commercialization derange our psychological roadmap, distort self-worth, inflict self-alienation, damage our capacity to empathize genuinely and to connect with others, and destroy the joy in life;

b) by traveling from the gross surface through the infinite depths of our minds, inferring strategic principles of self-actualization that can be used to restore our psychological roadmap and realize our full potential and, profiting from this cognitive process, to validate main lessons in managing business demands, creating work-life synergy;

c) by indicating why horizontal organizations characterized by positions rather than hierarchy, optimal exchange of data and ideas, and a collaborative culture where everyone counts increase productivity and engagement, establishing profitable mutual trust and thus the organizational confidence needed to exploit the market in a socially responsible manner, as opposed to businesses operated top-down or bottom-up, which are based on superior and slavish thinking, respectively;

d) by psycho-philosophically, as well as scientifically, secularizing the spiritual or holistic properties of life in order to benefit our inner growth and unfold the essence of our wholeness, having the mysticism of resilience emerge, and urging businesses to holistically execute corporate alignment in order to innovate and ensure continuity;

and,

e) as the cream of the crop, by continuing our psychological journey to unveil the penetralium of selfand provide answers to questions of a mystical nature.

I hope that the conclusions providing the highlights of the chapters made for easy reading and that the exercises and environmental survey aided in fulfilling your potential, improving your relationships, successfully managing your job or business demands, and adding meaning and joy to your life.

Thank you for allowing me to share my insights with you!

Roy Bhikharie