Work

Work

Jobs.

These two words are such a part of the national and international conversation, we can’t pick up a paper, listen to the news, talk to a friend or a family member much of the time without one of them coming up.

They are words that have the power to shape and define us.

Work is what we do, how we spend so many of our waking hours. Work is what many seek and can’t find.  Work can be enthralling, dangerous, numbing. These words clothe us and feed us, literally and sometimes, if we are lucky, in many other ways. Work can inspire us or sometimes even undo us.

I have been thinking a lot about what work is. I wonder about that question we ask or are asked from the very start, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” We also ask, “How can I make a living?” and I think about the word “living” and how essential our work is. Are we our jobs? What does it mean to love a job or to endure one? To wake each day jazzed to get there, just to get started. 

How can we create jobs that move us forward as people and as our own individual selves? What jobs do we hope our children and grandchildren will have? It seems to me everyone should have the right to work and to work hard each day and do work that matters, and, dare I say, work we like? But how?  

So I decided I’d start by talking to people, asking questions about what they do and why they do it and what their work means to them. Maybe I will find out what work gives or doesn't give them.

If I am lucky, I will gather up the stories and see a larger picture form.