They also serve, those who do “dirty” jobs

I used to be a total devotee of the work mantras that beckoned us to follow our passions and do what we want.  But somehow, I am no longer so quick to value work borne only out of love and passion for it.

There is nothing wrong with those mantras I mentioned.  In fact, they are exaltations to what is already intuitive in us – that when we know what we want, we can live our lives aflame with that passion and desire. And chances are, we would be more persistent in doing that very thing and achieve something worthwhile along those lines. Just read through all the great commencement speeches that tell you that you just have to follow your heart and things will fall into place.

A very recent study even confirmed this with a simple scheme. The study asked about 153 college students to work on word puzzles. Before they were asked to do the puzzles, they had to say how enjoyable they think it would be to work on the puzzles and also how personally important it was to them. Those who said they enjoyed doing the puzzles and who found it personally significant to them, did better than those who said they would not enjoy the task and found it unimportant.  What is more is that those who said they would enjoy the activity were also not as physically worn out by the puzzle task as the group who did not enjoy it.

The study above indeed confirmed what people who love what they do, experience: they do not get tired when they are doing things that they find interesting and important, as easily as when we do things that are just the opposite. Thus, while Einstein said that time was relative; we can now confirm that our personal energy is too, at least when we’re doing what we love.

You know this when you are working on a musical composition that is sashaying out of your soul; when you are concocting the perfect dish with the freshest ingredients in the perfect place for your loved ones; when your words as a writer are typing themselves, inking characters in scenes that straddle imagined and real worlds; when you have found yourself dancing, body and mind, as if you were meant to lay your mark in the universe with this very passion. It is indeed, an exhilarating, revelatory feeling to know what you want.

But what if you did not know your passion and don’t know what you want? And what if you never really find out that one passion that you could pursue? Would it really be your fault? And for the meantime, is your “passionless” work, whatever it may be, any less honorable or less worthy of the time you spend doing it?

My brain, as it re-thinks the notion of work, has been resculpted by Alain de Botton, particularly through his book called The Sorrows and Pleasures of Work (2009). There, he spends a good amount of time getting to know different kinds of workers and painting for us the sorrow and pleasures inhabiting human lives, like shifting sands. 

For instance there was career counsellor, Symons. He spent most of his waking hours listening to people who entertain the idea that somehow they have missed out on their true nature because they do not have the jobs that seem to give them the pleasure people write about in books and extol in speeches.

Symons, in fact, said that that was the most common illusion of his clients – that everyone thinks they are supposed to know what they want. He felt this to be something of a plague of a misconception that he placed this quote from psychologist Abraham Maslow (yes, the one who did the famous triangular hierarchy of needs) in his bathroom: “It isn’t normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement.”

Another work that rewired my brain as I think about “work” was Mike Rowe’s TED talk on Learning from “Dirty Jobs“. Rowe shifted my attention to the work that is repetitive (i.e., assemblies in factories) and “dirty” jobs like road kill picker-uppers who, he swears, whistle when they do their rounds.  Those kinds of jobs do not seem to be the ones carved out of a gnawing desire to create; but these jobs are here and they too, make the world go round, entwined with the passionate work of the relatively few.

I do love what I do. But that is not the norm.  It is easy to be grateful when you love what you do. But “work” is a vast tapestry of convoluted human motives and missions. This time, as far as the notion of work is concerned, the philosopher and the “Dirty Jobs” fella expanded my notion of work so much more than a science experiment did. – Rappler.com

Maria Isabel Garcia is a science writer. She has written two books, Science Solitaire and Twenty One Grams of Spirit and Seven Ounces of Desire. Her column appears every Friday and you can reach her at sciencesolitaire@gmail.com. 

(“Working man in a helmet and work clothes” image courtesy Shutterstock)