The Pleasure of Work
November 17th, 2007 | by Jeniffer |Do you enjoy your job?
Is your work fulfilling?
Do you find it fun?
Have you ever considered the possibility that it could be fun?
Some people don’t believe work can be fun, invigorating, or even interesting.
My dad was of the “work is work, fun is fun. Never the two shall meet” school.
He worked hard when he did, was proud of what he did for a living, but I don’t recall him ever mentioning he was looking forward to any aspect of it (except of course for the paycheck). He didn’t work on what his chosen career was after work. He didn’t read about it.
He worked.
Then he came home, and spent the majority of his evenings with his family.
Not a bad life, to be certain.
He was doing what he had been taught he should do, and hopefully the time he spent with his family was a source of joy.
But I wonder sometimes, how different his life would have been, if he had had work which he enjoyed.
A daily spark of passion, something which held his interest beyond the mere intellectual learning of how something is done, then repeating it time and again for eight hours per day, for who knows how many years of your life. It would have made an untold difference.
My husband is exactly the opposite. He loves his work.
He’s an electrician by trade, a position which he studied hard to learn, and worked hard to perfect.
He’s known this is what he wanted to do since the first time he very nearly electrocuted himself as a young boy. It gave him a real respect for electricity, and a deep curiosity to know it better.
The work he does is varied every day, and it brings forth from him a spark of keen interest, a challenge, a chance to figure things out and learn something new, make something better. These are things which make him tick, bring him alive.
He loves his job, and when he is not at work, he is very often at home, doing here exactly what it is that he does there.
Working, for him, is fun.
I also have found work which I enjoy. This blog brings to me the chance to daily learn something new. About blogging, about the world, about the things of which I am capable which I had not acknowledged before.
I find it stimulating, because I am always learning something. I like learning, and I have always enjoyed writing.
I liked it so much when I was younger, in fact, that I would never then have chosen it as a career. I wanted to, very much so, but it didn’t match what I had been taught to believe “work” should be.
Instead, I worked in meaningless jobs which I hated, believing as my dad had done–work is work, fun is fun, and never the two shall meet. I recall him saying to me once when I was complaining about this to him, “Who ever said you had to enjoy your job?”.
At that time, I did not have an answer. I had never heard anyone say that you should.
How different would people’s lives be, if we were taught that work should be something which we enjoy?
That the object of finding a “job” is not the monetary reward, although of course that does matter.
What if instead we were to believe that the object of what it is we do to make a living is that it fulfill us, that it resonates with our purpose for living, has meaning which coincides with our own values?
Imagine you were offered a position as a dishwasher in a very busy restaurant. You hate washing dishes, find it a chore, and don’t care over much for restaurants. However, if you take the job, for some reason they want to pay you a lot of money. At the same time you are offered a job which would help some cause you deeply believed in, doing a job which was something you enjoyed doing, with the same same hours, but for less pay–which position would you choose?
How would you feel later about that choice?
How would that choice affect the person you would become?
Some people know from the time they are very young exactly what it is they want to do for their career.
Some have that knowledge, but have it trampled down upon so thoroughly by others, that they lose their way.
They live the lives which others expect them to, rather than heeding their own inner guidance.
The good news is that this, too, can be changed.
You can bring your working life more in line with your values, talents, dreams and desires.
You can begin listening to that little voice deep down inside you that tells you you should be doing things differently.
Take courses.
Learn skills.
Volunteer in a field of your interest, if you have the time.
Doors will open, once you begin doing things that will take you along the path of your choice.
It may take months.
It may take years.
Either way, that time is going to pass.
Why not use it moving forward, instead of standing still?
Never let others dictate to you what it is you must do, not in your relationships, not in your career, not even in a field of personal interest which you choose to keep as a hobby.
If you are happy with your life the way that it is, if you have found work which you enjoy, if you have both these things, plus the love of another and your own good health, you are blessed many times over.
If not, begin now to seek ways to get these things.
And do not worry if others think you are having too much fun.
“I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun.”
–Thomas Alva Edison
