Why People Work
From Studs Terkel’s 1972 book Working:
Work is about daily meaning as well as daily bread. For recognition as well as cash; for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying. We have a right to ask of work that it include meaning, recognition, astonishment, and life.
That last line is worth repeating:
We have a right to ask of work that it include meaning, recognition, astonishment, and life.
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About Matt Perman
Follower of Christ. Husband of one, father of three. Former director of strategy at Desiring God. This blog exists to help equip Christians in good works, because that's what productivity is really about.
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It’s an attractive theory, but idols are always attractive.
The things that Terkel ascribes to work are rightly ascribed to God.
I recommend the essay “Why Work?” by Dorothy Sayers (from the collection Creed and Chaos) as the best words I’ve ever read on the subject.
Gordon: Should we find work meaningless rather than meaningful? Boring instead of astonishing?
Matt,
Isn’t seeking recognition inherently sinful?
It depends what is meant by recognition. In this context, I think recognition means feedback for your work–for example, one way this happens is when the manager or company leaders acknowledge employees for doing their job well.
+Should we find work meaningless rather than meaningful? Boring instead of astonishing?+
Matt, there’s no ‘should’ about it. To work and find satisfaction is a gift of God. But work is afflicted with meaninglessness and boredom, unavoidably so. This problem will be fixed in the new creation and not before.
Those who can find satisfaction in work should thank God for his unexpected kindness, neither taking it for granted nor treating it as a right.
I would disagree with Turkel’s statement, and modify it: “Our goal for work should be that it include meaning, recognition, astonishment, and life.”
I’m not comfortable with stating these things as rights — we have enough trouble these days with those sorts of claims. Bottom line, work is a way for us to feed ourselves and those we love, and everything else is a bonus.
Genesis 3:17 says, “cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life”
Asking for for anything from work more than daily bread (“eat of it”) is asking for something that will only be available to us post-restoration.
God created work as our means to daily bread and because it was created by God it also brought daily meaning. Our sin broke the meaning part by inviting the curse, and therefore pain (i.e. the lack of meaning) to all work.
great discussion….my concern is that we see work as exclusively that which happens for payment or a check. True, we live in a fallen version of ourselves and therefore, work carries cursed as well as blessed elements (pre-restoration, but presently redeemed for the believer)….But, can’t we also see work as that unique task or set of tasks that we’re put here on earth to do….Wilberforce was compelled to abolish slavery; Bonhoeffer compelled to return to Germany; I wonder at times….what compels me? What is that work that has been laid out for me and not someone else? I believe that when the compulsion comes, the meaning, recognition, astonishment, and life seem to fall into place.
WOW…I am not comfortable at all with some of the ideas and assumptions behind what Gordon and LK have said. Are you guys making a distinction between work and vocation? Or are you lumping both of those things together. If you are making a distinction, I can start to understand you. but if you are not, I don’t see how you are taking into account a whole host of Scriptural passages as well as the Reformational tradition regarding vocation.
To find satisfaction in a calling or a vocation is a gift of God, but it is fundamentally tied to a broader view of redemption that includes all of life and not simply a spiritual domain. Although the problem will be fixed in the new creation, that does not mean that there are not “eschatological intrusions” in the area of calling and vocation.
For a Christian to say that work is afflicted with meaninglessness and boredom does not acknowledge a distinction between calling/vocation and work in general in our industrialized world. In fact it should just be the opposite: as Christians we have invested all of what it means to be human with meaning. That is part of the incarnation. That doesn’t mean it is a right. Instead it is part of the way redemption works.
Again, I would encourage a more robust view of “work” that includes the notions of calling and vocation that were articulated in the Reformation. By doing this we avoid the temptation to make the error of seeing on those called by God to vocational ministry as having “meaning” in their work. Instead, we see that all of “work” from a Christian perspective, properly understood, is invested with meaning.
I suggest the book Luther on Vocation as a place to start that articulates the Reformational view of vocation through the writings of Martin Luther.