Work

My friend spoke to me about a boy who was always enthusiastic about doing work. Whenever the teacher put up some work and asked for volunteers, one hand was raised in the room. It looked as if rest of the hands were tied to the ground. This boy loved doing work. My friend even went on to share that he did not always do the work proficiently lest someone complain that he did the work as he had competence. It was his enthusiasm to accept work. Competence comes much later.


I try often to mull on why does Man deny work? All of us run away from work. Work has become now an evil. Man tries as much as he can to run away from it. If yesterday, we were asked what we would like to be given by a genie, most of us would say, give us our dream. Today, people would say, give me a million dollars so that they can just buy their dreams or can do without them. They can just sit in the house and do nothing? Is doing nothing the new profession?


At a certain level I can comprehend the apparent ‘evil’ of work. In my own experiences of being asked to volunteer for helping a kids club and teaching another set of kids, I refused. Deep inside, I knew it was not lack of time. It was the fear of the infringement of my freedom. It was the fear that doing this work would not leave any time for myself. It was an inherent selfishness that ran through my decisions.


There are people who on being asked if they would like to do a certain thing will respond: let me see, what I am doing today…I seem to be free, alright send me the details about the location and venue. There are another set of people who have nothing to do on the particular day but would dread vouching their time for an activity, course, seminar, work et cetera. They would think, “oh dear, work, I won’t be able to live my ‘own’ life”. My first objection is, if you really had something to do, then it is in direct conflict with your ‘own’ life. But if you have nothing on your agenda for the particular slot and yet refuse, it is a lack of will. Why is there a lack of will? Surely the will would be present if one would be invited to a party. The will is pointing to emotion and emotions don’t wish to work. It wishes only that, that could please it.


On a deeper level, people fail to dissolve themselves into the work they have been asked to do. They fail to identify themselves with work. They think work is one thing and my life is another. Thus work is a direct opposition to their comfort, joy and pleasures. But work should be my pleasure. That I work and so I eat. Often I have felt very guilty eating because I haven’t worked to merit food to give me sustenance. Work should be what defines me, fulfills me, gives me joy that I am useful, productive and worthy of love and recognition.


Have you ever seen the grin on a person’s face when he says: today, I went to market bought vegetables. I continued to the post office to post my mother’s letter. I took a number to the doctor, my brother is sick. I came home to send the files you needed over the internet. I finished my homework by afternoon and went to church in the evening”. In all this, you don’t see whining but a sense of a fruitful day. You do not see the person so much complaining as much as the person wishes to sing praises to a dossier of work he has committed, completed and feels good about. He has the will in doing this work, he dissolves himself, his preferences and desires and commands himself: my freedom is not taken away but is expressed as I believe in spending my time by going to the market and by waiting at the dispensary. It does not make me late for my ‘own’ work but gives me time to finish that what has been given to me, what I have accepted as my own, my responsibility.


Only until you can call work your ‘own’, can work be done and man be productive. Until then, selfishness persuades you to protect yourself from anything that can help you find yourself. Selfishness wants you solely for itself and makes you into a slothful bag of nothingness. It wants you to listen to your music, your movies, and your breakfast at home at your convenience, your Saturday evenings, your sleep, your life. Every time we find it difficult to commit or do work, it is a testimony to how selfish we are and speaks of our state of holiness. It is different if one does not commit for the fear of laying our feet in to too many things. That is prudence not selfishness


Don’t foolishly believe you are protecting your self-interests when you don’t even know what you wish to do in the day. Through work, we know ourselves but through our selfishness we know nothing but passing pleasures. Watching television, movies and playing games are temporary pleasures. Even a bored lad reads something as noble as a newspaper. But he may not be reading it for he wishes to be a well-informed person but because he does not know what else to do with his time and life.