What is Work?

Work is the use of energy, skills or personal resources to bring about desired results in an undertaking, enterprise, endeavor, or job. Despite what our culture tends to preach all work can be meaningful, if you approach it with the right attitude (with love and respect for others). Some people may feel that they have wasted time in unrewarding work-related tasks. It does not have to be that way, if you can find the meaning that position may hold for you. Often, when we have a job we don’t particularly like, we become depressed. Many people think it is “beneath"them to perform the menial tasks in life. But all work is valuable, and in order to find meaning in your work, you must first find the lesson. Perhaps you were meant to have that experience, so that you could learn something else—a skill or personal quality that will be helpful to you in the future.

Buddha said, “Right livelihood is work done consciously with pure intent and service."The work that is performed is a direct reflection of society’s standards and values, which gets filtered down to the individual—we do the work that is available, which is the work that is viewed as important. For instance, we used to think that manufacturing products was a priority. Now we think servicing customers is a priority. As society’s mores and values become more complex and differentiated, people are deciding for themselves what work needs to be done and then creating their own opportunities. I think it is safe to say that work in the 21st century is in the process of reinvention. For example, for a long time “society"did not think conserving and preserving our natural resources was important, but now tens of thousands of people have created their life’s work based on environmental issues.

In the Industrial Age, the richest person in the world owned natural resources. In the Information Age, the richest person in the world owns information/knowledge. And the business of retrieving, storing, and disseminating information is what our high-tech, cyber world is all about. From the farms to the factories, work meant long hours and hard labor in exchange for the feeling of a job well done and a paycheck. Today, people are getting very rich who have put in very little (if any) blood, sweat, or tears into their daily work. Thanks (or no thanks) to the Internet, companies are going public at the blink of an eye and twenty-one-year olds are becoming instant millionaires. Obviously, this new worker has put to rest the old idea of “working hard pays off."

Now more than ever, what is work? is an interesting question because all of our ideas about what is important and how to "make it" in the world of work are changing. Our ideas about how one should earn a living are changing. In the "good ole days," it took a long time to earn a fortune. Nowadays, we live in a get rich quick world, where people spend millions upon millions of dollars on lottery tickets and who hope to get on game shows that feature everyday, ordinary people becoming instant millionaires.

What is Your Concept of Work?
Defining what your concept of work is will enable you to create your life’s work. Stop and think about the who, what, where, when and why do you want to work? And try to consider what would be a healthy fit for you? Be sure to consider your life vision and life purpose statements when you answer these questions

Who do you want to work with?
Children, teenagers, adults? Upper, middle, or lower class? Similar or different background?

What kind of work do you want to do?
Self Employed: Work at home or at an office? Travel?
Organization Employed: Small, medium, large? Corporate? Non-profit?
Project-Employed: Free-lance? Contractor? Consultant?

Where do you want to work?
Inside or outside? For a small company or Fortune 500? In a big city or small town?

When do you want to work?
Day or night? Full-time, part-time, or temporary? Year round or seasonal?

Why do you want to work?
For the challenge? Money/benefits? Opportunity to share your gifts?
Of course keep in mind your overall lifestyle. How much money do you need to earn in order to live the kind of life you want? The smart thing to do is to live within your means and create a career that allows you to have the time to enjoy other things in life.

What Most People Need From Work

Do You Work to Live or Live to Work?

What kind of worker are you? Someone who has a balance between working and living? Or are you a workaholic? As spiritual beings, we are meant to seek happiness. Fulfillment comes from many sources, work is simply one of them. Is it important not to let society’s standards of the 50-60 hour work week dictate how you work.

As a society, we need to learn to relax. All work and no play is making us dull. Due to overwork and more time constraints, we are not fully living or working at our peak potential. How is it that Americans barely get two weeks of vacation a year and Europeans enjoy a month of “holiday"every year? In fact, we have been taught to be rugged individualists, fiercely independent people who have to fight for everything we get. We want to direct our destiny and be the master of our domain, which can be helpful in most cases. But when we go against nature, we go against ourselves. When it comes to modern career development, I advocate “becoming,"which is a lifelong process of following your intuition and keeping your skills updated as the best way to stay employed. But most career development programs and counselors focus on what “job"or “title"you want to hold. Just look at the pressure we put on children to be productive, and to make major decisions and choices. It is somewhat frightening that as early as nine or ten, we are asking what little Johnny wants to be when he grows up. Some of the most interesting people I have met who are in their 50’s and 60’s still haven’t figured that one out!

College is another place where career plans and expectations are forced on young people. Having worked with college students for several years, I cannot tell you how many of them choose majors and careers because of parental pressure, rather than basing it on what felt right to them. What is going on here? Does it really matter if you don’t know exactly what you want to do in the world of work while you are still in school? College is a time for exploration and discovery, not limiting, premature career/life decisions. The fact is most people will not be staying in the same job they had when they first got out of college. But if they haven’t learned how to become, then they will continue to believe they have to choose one thing.

Sad to say, grownups don’t get much of a break either. Adult students who return to school to finish a degree, seldom return because they want to know more about the world or themselves, or to learn for the sake of learning, but rather to get “a better job."The mindset here is that a better job leads to a better life, which may or may not be true. Believe it or not, it is o.k. not to have everything figured out about life! The best we can do is to stay centered in who we are and what we have to offer, and feel positive about the uncertainty of life. We put too much pressure on ourselves to know exactly what we want and how to get it - to have all the answers. What we should be cultivating in our children is a different focus. Instead of concentrating on what they want to be, or what we want them to be, let’s focus on helping them realize who they want to become.

The question really comes down to not the “how"of work, but the "why?" There are two main applications: