Most Western cultures inherit a particular idea about work that is often derived from Greek and Biblical stories of the Fall. According to this view, people are punished for disobeying God by being driven to very hard labor. Rather than being provided for, people are "condemned" to fending for themselves. This attitude also gives rise to a flip-side, the narrative that "life without work" is an even greater drudgery. Where and how did working life ever come to be associated with these labels?
If a person is too focused on work, they may very well lose scope about the overall lessons that are often inadvertently learned through work life. Examples: how to listen before speaking; how to communicate to be understood; how not to jump to conclusions; how to refrain from decisions until possibilities have been fully explored and analyzed, etc. These principles, for sure, could be learned outside of communities such as work, but what makes work so compelling is that we are pushed to work by survival needs. That is, a lot of things one would otherwise walk away from is highly (perhaps notoriously) tolerated at work!
Work life often teaches me things that I would never have sought using my own thinking or devices. Am I suggesting, then, that everyone should have an activity that they are forced to do to survive? Well, currently, that is the social arrangement, but I often wonder whether work is really something we are forced to do after all.I suspect that people for the most part enjoy the sense of being mentally occupied and engaged, as well as the sense of belonging that workplaces afford. I doubt that work would suddenly fall behind if everyone didn't have to work tomorrow. I believe that people would still desire work in this case, and in fact, would seek it out even more if it were not associated with pressure and fear.
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