The Nature and Meaning of Our Work - Continued
We're returning to our series about the nature and meaning of work. As we did in the past, we'll use Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski as our guide. If you remember, his work, originally published in Polish, has been published in several English versions. We're using the most recent, Working Your Way into Heaven: How to Make Drudgery a Means to Your Sanctity.
Let's pick up with the idea of our work as "drudgery."
Since we live in an age replete with business and self-help books that urge us to "follow our dream," or "do what you love" when it comes to work, the idea of work as drudgery may seem overly negative. Maybe it seems antiquated recalling images of factory workers on assembly lines doing the same thing - by hand, without the help of computer-driven machines - over and over, day after day. Who does that sort of work (at least here in the U.S.) anymore? And yet that hardly means that the balance of us who don't work in a factory either have, or have a reasonable shot at, doing what we love and getting paid for it.
With that in mind, I can't help but recall the following from my years of reading business and self help books: Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life.
Having recovered from what was practically an addiction to this sort of propaganda, it really rankles me when I hear or read this endlessly repeated. Sure, some of us are blessed to be able to do what we love and get paid reasonably well for it. Maybe you're one of those fortunate folks. But, unless I've been leading a sheltered existence out of touch with the real world (and I haven't), experience tells me such folks are few and far between. Most of us work at jobs that fall somewhere between that ideal and the other extreme: doing something you hate that pays you a pittance. So during a typical day of labor, there may very well be stretches that could be described as drudgery. If we can agree on that, then the following words of Cardinal Wyszynski will ring true:
"It is a condition of work itself that it should contain some burden and toil."
Let's pause for a second and contemplate what's being asserted here. Burden and toil aren't characteristics of some kinds of work. They're contained in all work - and that includes those few who do what they love and get paid for it. It's just the nature of work.
It's important that we recall here that the need to work was not something imposed on us as punishment for Adam and Eve's Original Sin. Work is integral to us as human beings.
"In human work we see a mingling of joy and suffering, liberation and dependence...In work there is something of the contradiction inherent in man's nature, an echo, as it were, of Paul's complaint: 'I observe another disposition in my lower self, which wars against the disposition of my conscience.'"
We human beings are complex creatures. We engage in the battle of good vs. evil every day. Our desire to do good will sometimes be blocked or waylaid by the temptation to do otherwise. Our work reflects this. So it's no surprise that we may have some jobs we enjoy, some we don't, and some (or most) that we enjoy sometimes, sometimes not. Our work reflects our human nature.
In future posts, we'll continue our discussion of the nature and meaning of our work guided by Working Your Way into Heaven by Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski. Given what we learned today, next time we'll dig deeper into the mystery of why our work, even the best, most joyful sort, can still be so tiresome and difficult.
Let's pick up with the idea of our work as "drudgery."
Since we live in an age replete with business and self-help books that urge us to "follow our dream," or "do what you love" when it comes to work, the idea of work as drudgery may seem overly negative. Maybe it seems antiquated recalling images of factory workers on assembly lines doing the same thing - by hand, without the help of computer-driven machines - over and over, day after day. Who does that sort of work (at least here in the U.S.) anymore? And yet that hardly means that the balance of us who don't work in a factory either have, or have a reasonable shot at, doing what we love and getting paid for it.
With that in mind, I can't help but recall the following from my years of reading business and self help books: Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life.
Having recovered from what was practically an addiction to this sort of propaganda, it really rankles me when I hear or read this endlessly repeated. Sure, some of us are blessed to be able to do what we love and get paid reasonably well for it. Maybe you're one of those fortunate folks. But, unless I've been leading a sheltered existence out of touch with the real world (and I haven't), experience tells me such folks are few and far between. Most of us work at jobs that fall somewhere between that ideal and the other extreme: doing something you hate that pays you a pittance. So during a typical day of labor, there may very well be stretches that could be described as drudgery. If we can agree on that, then the following words of Cardinal Wyszynski will ring true:
"It is a condition of work itself that it should contain some burden and toil."
Let's pause for a second and contemplate what's being asserted here. Burden and toil aren't characteristics of some kinds of work. They're contained in all work - and that includes those few who do what they love and get paid for it. It's just the nature of work.
It's important that we recall here that the need to work was not something imposed on us as punishment for Adam and Eve's Original Sin. Work is integral to us as human beings.
"In human work we see a mingling of joy and suffering, liberation and dependence...In work there is something of the contradiction inherent in man's nature, an echo, as it were, of Paul's complaint: 'I observe another disposition in my lower self, which wars against the disposition of my conscience.'"
We human beings are complex creatures. We engage in the battle of good vs. evil every day. Our desire to do good will sometimes be blocked or waylaid by the temptation to do otherwise. Our work reflects this. So it's no surprise that we may have some jobs we enjoy, some we don't, and some (or most) that we enjoy sometimes, sometimes not. Our work reflects our human nature.
In future posts, we'll continue our discussion of the nature and meaning of our work guided by Working Your Way into Heaven by Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski. Given what we learned today, next time we'll dig deeper into the mystery of why our work, even the best, most joyful sort, can still be so tiresome and difficult.
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