Why Do We Work?
I grew up in a household with two parents who both worked full time — if full time means
60 hours/week. Work — such a fascinating concept. A concept that has not been
questioned or reconsidered since the invention of currency. We work because that is
what we are told to do. We are taught to learn in order to work.
We pay ridiculous amounts of money to universities in order to have them stamp us with
a seal of approval: “ready to join the workforce.” In every country, in every culture, in
every society in the world, people are working. But are they working for the right
reasons? Do they even have a reason, or are they just being complacent? The truth is
that we do not need to work. We don't. What we do need is to survive — and in order to
do that, and because we live in the world that we live in, we need to be capable of
paying the cost of living.
The cost of living is different in different parts of the world. In some parts, there is no
need for currency, simple labor and trade will suffice to keep you alive. You can work on
a farm, maybe herd some animals, and for all that you don't have, but need, you can
trade for. The bartering system does still exist in certain parts.
In the most modern of civilizations, we no longer work in order to meet our most basic of
needs. We have progress to higher needs, to needs that go beyond survival alone. We
look to improve on our lives, to make them better and to make ourselves happier. While
many still do work in order to pay for the most basic of necessities, a good amount of
people (although a minority in the world) have moved on towards working towards
happiness — no longer only survival.
Such privileged people, myself included, have the rare opportunity to live a fulfilling life.
While the majority of the world live in poverty, most of you reading this are going to be
working not just to have something to eat today, but to have some of the things on your
long list of wants — a list of things most would consider luxuries.
I understand that working and earning wages is not much of a privilege, but the
compared to the alternative it is. I'm sorry to say, however, that the majority of people
who are so privileged as to be working are doing so for the wrong reasons. Rather, they
are confused as to what the right reasons for working are. You see, the right reasons
aren't simply to make money — money is only as good as what you can use to purchase
with it. If you are going to be working then work in order to fulfill your higher needs —
those that go beyond survival and safety.
We have been led to believe that the best jobs are those that bring the biggest bucks.
We now live in a society that values material possessions, in many cases, higher than
human life itself. People work their entire lives in order to collect and to save money so
that they can one day retire and begin living their life.
Have you ever heard anything so stupid in your life? I'll be damned if I have to work for
60-70 years just so that I can live for the 20-30 years that hopefully follow, hopefully.
There is a better reason to be working: fulfillment.
If you should aim for anything in life, it should be fulfillment. Fulfillment is a combination
of accomplishment and purpose. Once we have met our basic needs — food, water,
shelter, safety, companionship — we move on to our more exclusively psychological
needs. An average person’s life is split between work life and “personal life.”
We then allow ourselves to drudge through work so that we can enjoy our personal life —
the life that comes after we clock out. Our personal life is the only time that we have to
grow, to explore and to find fulfillment — it doesn't have to be, but that is how we for
some inexplicable reason decide to divvy things up.
What if the work that you did didn't feel so much like work? What if you decided to do
something that wouldn't separate you from your life, but add to it. What if your work
fascinated you, excited you, showed you a new perspective on life? What if you used
your work as an outlet for fulfillment and not just as some mundane actions that you
need to roll through in order to collect a paycheck? Our lives are shorter than we realize
and we spend a huge part of them working.
Work shouldn't be something you don't enjoy, something that you feel that you must do.
Work should be something that you want to do, something that you feel is just as much a
part of you as your left arm. There are plenty of bad reasons to work, but there is only
one good reason to work. Seeing as you have little choice but to get a job, do your best
to make it one that adds to your life and not one that drains the life out of you.
