Ian M Rountree got me thinking with his recent blog post Amazing Things: Writing Books. He describes the process of writing, the desire to become published, and why you should go to so much effort to write a book. This quote from his post got me to thinking about the nature of work:
Why write a book? Because the method of publishing is irrelevant, the work itself is an amazing thing.
The work. Effort. Toil.
Image by orangeacid
It seems like there’s some resistance to doing work in contemporary Western culture. One popular book and blog promotes the value of a four hour work week. Passive income is a similar concept, whereby you make a good income by creating (mostly) automated systems to generate revenue. Slaving away at something just doesn’t seem to be cool.
Work gets a bad rap. We look for endless ways to become more efficient, to use fewer cycles, sweat, and fears to get things done. Yet, if Malcolm Gladwell is right, we can’t master anything with less than 10,000 hours of work. Or ten years, looked at from a different perspective.
The reason why we despise effort and toil (not work, per se) is when it seems pointless, contrary to what we think we want, or when the working conditions are cruel.
On the other hand, when we are “working hard” toward a goal that we chose and that we are motivated to achieve, quite often it doesn’t feel like work after all. Or at least it doesn’t feel terrible.
A few weeks ago I asked a number of people to provide their advice on how you can do better work, right now.
Further to this, I thought I would share a few other quotations about work with you. I’ve owned a book called What a Piece of Work is Man! for a few years now. It’s full of quotes on various timeless topics. Hopefully you’ll find some of these to be interesting or useful:
“Work keeps us from three great evils: boredom, vice, and want.” Voltaire, Candide, 1759
“No fine work can be done without concentration and self-sacrifice and toil and doubt.” Max Beerbohm, And Even Now, 1920
“I don’t like work… but I like what is in work – the chance to find yourself. Your own reality – for yourself, not for others – which no other man can even know.” Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, 1902.
“What is work? and what is not work? are questions that perplex the wisest of men.” Bhagavad-Gita
| Bonus reference: check out the Great Work Series of interviews by Michael Bungay Stanier for more inspirational thoughts. |
* I was going to call this post work is not a four letter word but, well, it is.
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Twitter Comment
RT @MarkDykeman: Blog post – Work is not a dirty wrd * | Broadcasting Brain – difft thoughts abt thinking differently [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
You really need to see this TED Talk about work. Long (about 20:00) but bang on what you are talking about. (Starts with fairly long but very relevant anecdote — quite funny too.)
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.html
Mike Rowe, the host of ‘Dirty Jobs,’ and, “… his insights and observations about the nature of hard work, and how it’s been unjustifiably degraded in society today.”
Bill´s last blog ..I want to be on the radio
@Bill – definitely going to check out the Mike Rowe talk, thanks.
I heard recently about a company switching its employees to unlimited time off, for salary, on the assumption their work got done. This seemed like an idiotic idea at first – until I realized it would force the company, and its employees, to switch from a time-card theory of reporting to a completion-based theory, and huge accountability.
It’s a worthwhile question – why the shirk, jerks?
I figure if the work you want to do you’re going to do without pay, any business worth its salt that needs the work you do would be blind and foolish (in that order) not to pursue you and pay you if for no other reason than to free you from other obligations so you can do the work you love!
Or maybe we’re off the deep end?
Ian M Rountree´s last blog ..Amazing Things: Writing Books
@Ian – that company sounds like a very interesting place to work. I wonder, though, how much of the company is customer-facing?
I worked at a radio station once where the guy who owned it couldn’t care less when you came in or even if you came in. However, if you didn’t and it jeopardized something, like a relationship with a client, or if you failed to get your work done, he was black and white: you’re fired. He expected you to be responsible and get the job done, whether it took two hours or ten.
I had more fun and more enjoyment there than any other place I’ve worked. And I probably put in more hours there than anywhere else because I loved what I was doing, partly because of how the owner ran things. However, it would be very difficult to replicate his approach in a corporate and/or unionized environment.
Bill´s last blog ..Respecting the work
@Bill – man, that place sounds very, very cool.