There’s a Reason They Call It "Work"

Should work make us happy? Or, more to the point, should it be the chief element in defining our sense of self and personal worth as it so often is in the contemporary world? Time to get more realistic about what work can deliver in terms of satisfaction, says philosopher Alain de Botton.

He contrasts the pre-modern idea that work was necessarily a distasteful thing with the “more cheerful” modern view:

In the writings of bourgeois thinkers like Benjamin Franklin, Diderot and Rousseau, we see work recategorized not only as a means to earn money, but also as a way to become more fully ourselves. … work was now alleged to be capable of delivering both the money necessary for survival and the stimulation and self-expression that had once been seen as the exclusive preserve of the leisured.



Though all this may seem like progress, in truth, modern attitudes toward work have unwittingly caused us problems. Today, claims are made on behalf of almost all kinds of work that are patently out of sync with what reality can provide. Yes, a few jobs are certainly fulfilling, but the majority are not and never can be. We would therefore be wise to listen to some of the pessimistic voices of the pre-modern period, if only to stop torturing ourselves for not being as happy in our work as we were told we could be.



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