Work makes my world bigger. It gives me a sense that while we are all broken, we are broken open to each other. Work lets me connect. And there is joy in paying attention, not necessarily to find solutions but to make meaning out of a situation. When so many choices are taken away, you still have the beauty of each minute you live.

Kate Bolwer in Counting Her Minutes: Publishers Weekly Talks With Kate Bowler

I have been living small for a few years. A marriage, leaving a job, and move (within the period of a month) felt like I was living large. A penthouse apartment in Miami. A sun tan. Frequent flyer miles. Exquisite meals. (Seems pretty large. Right?) It turned into something quite different. In fact, my world was becoming smaller, as daily interactions dwindled, connection to colleagues and hard earned network shriveled on the vine of isolation, and all the work experience I had lived seemed to fade into memory. My days were about writing — an often solitary, isolated, and quiet pursuit. My understanding of living large and living small, and by extension big work and small work, began to shift and change.

The idea that work makes our world bigger makes sense to me. Bowler found herself in her dream job, married to her handsome high school sweetheart, and mother to a toddler whose eyelashes she counted with joy and amazement when her diagnosis and treatment required her to ask different questions of life and work and frame life and work differently. Her world could have become instantly small — focused solely on cancer. That was not a choice she made/makes. Bowler offers an explanation for the bigness of work — it turns our broken world into connection, attention, and meaning.

My understanding of big work has changed. It is a privilege and a blessing to do big work. Big work is simple. It does not have to be heavy like a hero’s journey, pilgrimage to a Holy Land, or Jungian excavation of our shadow selves. As Bowler suggests, ultimately work is about finding beauty in each minute you live. Living big or living small. Big work or small work. That makes sense to me.