Why should you work?
Many people have difficulty understanding that work is more than earning money or doing what you do to survive.
I once visited a nursing home for retired, elderly people. It’s comfortable. A leisure-oriented facility. Very social too.
I started asking people there how they’re doing. Then I got struck by one major need expressed among them:
“We have too much leisure here. But not enough work.”
The loss of work is deeply disturbing and saddening to them.
Their main regret is that they wish they had something to do – some way to be useful to others and give their lives a deeper meaning.
We’re all designed for work. It’s foundational to our humanity.
Leisure and pleasure are enjoyable goods. But they can only go so far. We can only take so much of them. Afterwards, we feel empty.
Then we find ourselves going back to “something to do,” longing, or looking for it. It’s a primary way to be who we really are – our DNA, our design.
As author Dr. Timothy Keller put it,
“We don’t merely need the money … to survive; we need the work itself to survive and live fully human lives.”
Rather than just living for yourself, it’s basic that you make yourself useful and helpful to others. It’s an essential medium as well in which you offer your life to God.
Within our families, we may easily and willingly go out of our way to serve and be helpful. But outside that boundary, we may hesitate or think twice.
What you do is most meaningful and moving precisely when it’s rendered to those who are not kin. To the whole of humanity, in general. Even in the absence of gain.
“Non nobis solum natisumus” (Not for ourselves alone are we born). – Cicero
“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.” – Muhammad Ali
“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.” – Steve Jobs
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