Whatever Work Is…

“Without some goal and some effort to reach it,” said Dostoevsky, “no man can live.” “The highest reward for man’s toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it.” “Not to be occupied, and not to exist, amount to the same thing,” said Voltaire. We see before us the paradox of some people working less and less while the total needs of the world are more and more. We see the paradox of leisure becoming more and more popular while many work at more than one job, more than one assignment. And while many need and want work, many consider it as something to be avoided. Work is thought by some to be the dullest of drudgery, and yet to others is the most exciting, life-giving part of life. “It is impossible,” observed Elton Trueblood, “to overstress the place of work in contemporary life…. A man can stand what he is doing if he can see its larger significance. What must be almost unbearable is pointless toil…. [But] if we are to have a complex organization there must be repetitive tasks and some people must perform many of them. If people are to live they must eat, and if they are to eat bread somebody must make it. Once the formula is established… work… is inevitably routine…. Almost every job has its dull aspect, but any necessary job can be glorified by the conception of human service.” Whatever work is or is thought to be, it is essential to each of us⎯for growth, for character, for development, and for “a hundred virtues [and satisfactions] which the idle never know.” “People have to work in order to be happy… without work, rest and relaxation have no meaning.” To cite the words of Charles Kingsley: “Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day which must be done whether you like it or not.” “Only through [honest] work does a man fulfill himself.”