Sometimes life feels like work, work, work!
So what is the deal on our attitudes toward work? Work is a wonderful blessing? A necessary evil? Why all the ambiguity?
Most of us assume it’s a good thing to have a job. After topping 9% most of 2009-11, unemployment has dropped to 6.2% as of this month. That’s good, right?”
But “according to Gallup’s State of the American Workplace: 2010-2012 report, employee engagement levels remain stagnant among U.S. workers. By the end of 2012, as the U.S. inched toward a modest economic recovery, only 30% of American workers were engaged, or involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their workplace.” (Gallup Business Journal, June 11, 2013.)
So jobs are a good thing – just not 70% of them – or 70% of us are mismatched in some way.
Not everyone is sold on joining the workforce in the first place. Katie Morison of MSN News points out, “For those on welfare and other aid from the government in many U.S. states, getting back into the work force doesn’t always make much sense financially. In fact, welfare and other government benefits pay more than a minimum-wage job in 35 states and in 13 states, the payout is more than $15 an hour, according to a new study from libertarian think tank The Cato Institute. The study found that the assistance — defined in the study as including government benefits such as food stamps, housing assistance and other programs — pays more than a first-year teacher’s salary in 11 states, the starting salary for a secretary in 39 states and an entry-level job as a computer programmer in three states.”
So if you can make more money not working than working, isn’t not working a smart decision or should we work for work’s sake?
Those steeped in Scripture might tell you that we will always feel ambiguity toward work. Part of the “curse of Adam” for disobeying God was that work became … well … more work.
To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:17-19, NIV).
In one passage Saint Paul cuts through attitudes on work and basically says to stop whining and just do it: “For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat’” (1 Thessalonians 3:10, NIV). He goes even further in another passage, urging slaves to work with gusto: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (Colossians 3:23-24, NIV). (Note: Paul was not in favor of the ubiquitous practice of slavery found in his day. In numerous letters, he spoke out on humane treatment of all people, and one letter, Philemon, is devoted to the freeing of a slave.)
Even if we seek an eternal reward, most of us want the earthly reward that accompanies work, namely salary and benefits. Since we desire some level of financial freedom and success, does that mean we are destined for a life spent “in the salt mines” where we hopefully have a few good years left after retiring?
I think my friend Richard Exley got it right in his book The Rhythm of Life that was published back in the 1980s. The balanced, purposeful, happiest, most fulfilling life possible includes four dynamics working together:
WORSHIP
WORK
REST
PLAY
Leave out any one of those elements and life loses some of its beauty.
In William Butler Yeats’ classic poem, “Adam’s Curse,” we read:
I said, ‘It’s certain there is no fine thing, since Adam’s fall but needs much labouring.’
Many of the finest things in life – not just possessions, but feelings of purpose and achievement, self-respect, the respect of others – can only come through work, which might entail some blood, sweat, and tears.
Work, no matter the setting, no matter the wages and benefits, no matter the employer competences, is still going to be … uh … um … just plain hard work at times.
But work need not only be drudgery – nor done only performed in the confines of official employment – when it is woven into a tapestry with worship, rest, and play. Then it becomes something that completes the rhythm of life.
Very well stated, Mark. Just last week I wrote something akin to this topic in a weekly column I write for our local newspaper. It’s good to hear someone else affirm the very real value of work. Without good, honest work, the rhythm of life is indeed interrupted and stymied. Thanks for writing and sharing this!
Heya great blog! Does running a blog similar to this take a massive amount work?
I have absolutely no knowledge of computer programming
however I had been hoping to start my own blog soon. Anyway, if
you have any suggestions or tips for new blog owners please share.
I know this is off subject nevertheless I just had to ask.
Kudos!