“Work is just something we do so we can afford our real lives.”

I read this online recently, not for the first time, and it bothered me, not for the first time. 

Because first of all, what is work?

Here’s one definition: activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.

I like that definition.

But I understand that when people say such things, they are probably referring to this definition: to be employed, especially as a means of earning one’s livelihood.

Okay, let’s go back to the quote:

“Work is just something we do so we can afford our real lives.”

And then, what qualifies to be our real lives?

It can’t be our jobs, apparently, and since supposedly the average person spends one third of their lives at work and another one third sleeping, this means only a third of our lives qualify as our real lives. 

Except then there’s also the daily maintenance tasks of house and body care that everyone has to do to some extent at least. Also, eating. Do these count as work or real life?

I find this idea depressing, to despise at least a third of your life.

But I do remember thinking that way, that work was basically a necessary evil. And I also remember, very clearly, the day someone said to me:

“Part of your purpose is to work.”

And it felt like a relief. 

It freed me from trying to transcend work, from waiting to begin my real life until I had enough money that we didn’t need to work. 

That was when I started to view work as something good. Something in which I could find joy and fulfillment and purpose. It was a life-changer. 

Since then I’ve had jobs where I wept on the way home because I felt like it was draining the life out of me, and I’ve had jobs where I wept on the way home because I was so grateful. Believing that work is good does not mean that all types of work suit me equally well. It just means that I don’t assume the solution is getting away from working entirely. Sometimes the solution is that I need to learn to enjoy what’s in front of me. And sometimes I need to get a different job. 

One problem with believing that work is bad is that people who literally do not work – as in doing little to no activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result – are not happy people. I’ve personally experienced this, and I’ve watched other people experience it. They say your risk of depression goes up by 40% when you retire. 

This doesn’t astonish me. We were designed to do things – things that involve mental and physical effort in order to achieve a purpose or result. 

I don’t want to live in a reality where less than one third of my life is counted as worthy of living. 

I don’t want to live in a reality where something that will inevitably fill such a large percentage of my waking hours is seen as an obstacle to real life.

I want to live in a reality where, because I believe work is supposed to be good – not easy, but good – and fulfilling, I find ways to make it so. Just like the other things I do.

My experience is that work is something that connects us to other people and allows us to help them make their lives better.

When I do accounting, it’s my clients and the women who work for me. 

When I do our laundry and cook and take care of my house, it’s my husband and my child. 

When I write, it’s you. Sometimes. Sometimes it’s myself and my God. 

Work and art are remarkably the same in this, that both remind me that I am part of humanity, both give me that feeling of belonging. I have something of value to give and to receive here. 

Fun fact: there is a word that is translated from Hebrew to English as worship in some places in the Bible, and that same word in other places is translated as to work. 

That makes sense to me.