Phil and Pam/Flickr
Posting a few weeks back, I noted that in today's economy the impulse to demand meaning in one's job may seem naive, but that the drive to find meaning in work
is not. I asked for feedback and got a lot--both on this site, and off
line. What is clear is that many of us are struggling not only to find
work, but to find purpose in a world where one's best efforts are so
often overlooked. Young people in particular seem to be struggling with
this ... and one particularly insightful comment came from Maureen K.
Chu, a recent graduate of New York University who -- like so many of her
peers -- is struggling to find purchase in today's daunting job market.
Here are some of her thoughts:
Some further reflection brought to mind a piece that had baffled me in a course on nineteenth-century British Literature: the chapter entitled "Labour" from Thomas Carlyle's "Past and Present". I wanted to like Carlyle...(but) his declaration that "The latest Gospel in this world is, Know thy work and do it" disturbed me. I struggled to understand why an idealist, influenced by the thinkers of both the European and American Enlightenments, would stress the value of labor beyond its simple purpose as a means of making a living, such that it would become, as he writes, "a life-purpose."
Maureen's comment seemed to echo those of several other young respondents who confessed that they did not expect to rely on work -- at least work for pay -- as a steady source of meaning in their lives. Many of the middle-aged respondents said they wished they'd learned that lesson long ago. What are your thoughts?
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/should-we-expect-work-to-be-meaningful/251474/
