Why Do We Work?

Maybe I just filter everything in one direction, but it seems like everywhere I go, people are talking about their job, their job search, their joys and struggles with volunteer work.

I have long believed that we don't work for money; we work to find out who we are and what makes the world work. Money is both a fuel and a reward for our work, but we actually work to become more fully human in whatever way or through whatever means we find.

I have a friend who is a nurse and who was recently laid off. She's in her 50s, has no children or grandchildren and is frantically bored. She is a gifted home decorator and a highly compassionate friend and daughter, so there is no end of "activity" to draw her attention. But she is anxious about her unemployment, albeit busy with these spare time demands. She wants to get back to a "job", one with all the potential stress, structure and protocols that come with her profession. She is financially quite comfortable, so money is not behind her anxiety. What does my friend get from a job she cannot get from other kinds of work?

Her profession has given her a trajectory of accomplishment that she can summon up and point to, one where she has learned by education and by trial and error how to exercise good judgment and take decisive action. Her profession has given her a mantle of identity, an understandable narrative to navigate the social sphere, a way to belong in the world. This belonging is at the heart of the anxiety for her and for many. She is no less useful or productive for the fine craft work she does in her home, nor for the necessary loving care she provides her elderly mother. But the narrative of belonging resides in her profession. Belonging and identity and self-esteem are all wrapped into the same paradigm. The anxiety cannot be casually switched off when we become unemployed, but having some compassion for the human need for belonging is helpful to give oneself a little patience with the process and to allow for the ongoing contribution everyone makes when we have newfound free time.