'Your purpose in life is to find your purpose...'

St Joseph the Worker. Friday, 1st May, 2020

I have had a deeply privileged life in that I have enjoyed, relished and savoured my working days, all my days.

I would argue that in my case I have found it difficult to divide up my life, to separate work from rest of my life, finding living and doing what I have been asked to do a wholeness.

All my years have been so good: childhood, school, university, first job and onwards. Of course, there have been many times of irritation, boredom, challenge, seeing greener grass the other side of the fence and wishing time away.

Yet I know and have seen many who have had extremely difficult lives: either their work has been gruelling, burdensome and onerous or they have had no work at all. Only the other day I was reading an article on 'sex workers' not a work enjoyed by many yet for some the only way to earn a living or so it seemed.

Yesterday I noted that 34 million people in the USA are now unemployed and I read interviews with some of them. They fear hunger, homelessness, loss of health insurance coverage and listlessness and mental depression.

One couple interviewed in England told of how they went hungry so that their children might not as they had lost their zero hours jobs and universal credit did not fill the gap and pay the rent, food, clothes and necessary expenses. 

The German poet, Goethe, wrote : "the human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it".

A friend of mine who studied sociology and psychology recalls a survey she undertook. Those interviewed on being asked who they were in 90 percent of cases started with their job...I am a teacher/civil servant/ shop assistant/ farm worker. It was as if they felt themselves defined by their work. If they had no work they felt worthless and embarrassed. 

In my youthful days I recall the beliefs and prophecies that technology and artificial intelligence were to bring the age of leisure. Humankind was to be taught how to use, occupy, fill their time when the 'daily grind' had been taken over by robots or their successors.

Certainly we have lost many jobs in which humans were engaged. The introduction of machinery in farming, of automation in factories and today the closure of High street shops as ordering on line (and possible delivery by drones) becomes popular. Banks are closing as the online revolution gathers pace. “Saving time” was the great mantra as domestic appliances became the norm and take away foods and ready made meals became unexceptional. "Saving time" for what?

Here are the questions. But first I quote the Buddha: "Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it".

I would add...to find yourself.

Are our lives easily divided in to work, rest and play?

If we do not have work are our lives simply rest and play?

Is a person in prison in that latter category?

Do I work simply to be able to afford food and accommodation?

Yes, for in many countries of the world there is no alternative.

In those countries with a welfare system must I seek work to be eligible for benefit?

Must I do any work even if it is a drudgery, not suitable?

Did not Mother Teresa write: "work without love is slavery"

Must I love my work even if my employer is abusive, cruel and mean? 

Many questions.

I am not being political. I am wondering how to achieve the dignity that I believe all humans deserve.

Do we have a right to life or must we earn it?

Is work merely a fact?

No one will eat if the ground is not tilled, the seeds planted, the harvest taken in, the fruits taken to Market.

And for dignity to be real do we have the right to education, to culture, access to knowledge, ideas, medical help?

I have a dream, not unlike Luther King's dream, an utopian vision. I am aware the human is flawed.

Leisure is part of my vision.

Tolstoy wrote: “in the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you".

There is no universal that fits all but most of us know the minimum needed for a dignified life.

To that end we have a part to play. We are a part of the whole and to be whole in ourselves we need to play our part. 

I am not defined by my work, by labels.

I still seek to know who I am and my purpose but I know that when I find the answers it will simply be a tautology:

I am me.

#goethe #buddha #tolstoy #martinlutherking #utopian #utopia #savingtime #iamme