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On Work -- Random Thoughts 10/5/2017 6:59:07 AM
I watched a short internet video in which a TV sportscaster offered a three-stage prescription for succeeding at work: "Get to work, Keep working, Don't stop till the job gets done."
I had no quarrel with what she said but would have added, "Find work you like and that you're good at. Figure out how to get along with people."
As I thought about my work experience, I remembered that people have different reasons for working. Some want to earn enough money to support a family with a little extra. Others put rewards first and demand work that will make them rich or powerful or well-known.
Still others feel a calling to help or heal and go into teaching or medicine or another profession. People with special talents for sports, say, or the arts or intellectual life decide they'll follow their bent no matter what it takes. A TV comedian popular a few decades ago said that if he couldn't be an actor, he'd polish actors' shoes.
On the other hand, we pass through months and years when the unempoyment rate is high. And there are surely people who are disappointed because they've missed their calling for lack of opportunity or responsibilty for others or no money for training. The English poet Thomas Gray wrote about the plight of people left out of life's big rewards in "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard": "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,/and waste its sweetness in the desert air." He suggests that a mute Milton or a talented Cromwell, one who would have been innocent of shedding blood, were buried in the cemetery he's visiting. What a model society we'd have if everyone who needed a job could find suitable, rewarding work.
Still, though I haven't met many, I've heard of people who don't want to work. And some can't work because of illness, injury, or disabilty. On the opposite end are people who love to work, keep at it for dozens of hours each week, or need to work two or three part-time jobs to make ends meet.
The stories of people who labor faithfully at tedious, uninspiring tasks ought to cause the rest of us to wonder and think. Society rests on the shoulders of people who take on burdensome, repetitive tasks and work at them with modest reward and without quitting.
After a certain amount of experience, work becomes part of our makeup and we don't think about its nature. It's just there -- like the sky or the wind or the rain.
The Bible tells us in one of its first chapters that we will earn our living by the sweat of our brow, so the Divine Force behind the book Genesis knows that work can be difficult and wearying, a pain. Centuries later, however, King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes that it's good for a man to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor during the few days of life God has given him.
Solomon's comment helps us. We're doing well when we find work that satisfies, provides for our needs, and brings us into meaningful contact with others. Moreover, our appreciation for work increases when we identify the benefits it brings to others.
Aside from monetary rewards, work keeps us busy and active in the world. It can challenge us to do our best. It often brings us in touch with a variety of people. It can teach what we need to know -- persistence, new skills, how to get on with others, how the world operates, tolerance, how to be productive. Of course, work can become tedious and wearisome. It can also bring us satisfaction and show us that life is good.
