To be truly enthusiastic about something—that’s truly a
luxury.
It's
really a luxurious thing to be enthusiastic in adult life, when so many seem to
proffer the answer "It’s work," to “How’s work going”? I do think that it is difficult
to love what you do (and vice-versa) partly because whatever we choose to do,
we can imagine being happier doing something else. Sometimes, I'm plagued by
doubt as to whether I should switch to a career that matches my passions more
closely. I’m sure I’m not alone.
Am I in the right profession? Am I doing the
right thing in terms of my career? Is this my life—a 9 to 5 office job?
For me,
it's hard to match the enthusiasm I feel when I run outdoors. Maybe it’s the
adrenaline or even the wind brushing against my face as I run downhill. I feel
active, less like a lumbering human and more like a well-oiled machine,
changing gears with precision, pushing my pistons (legs) up and down. I wish I
could run and keep on running until my feet give out.
It's
then that I wish I could travel. I’d like to leave everything and buy a one-way
ticket to who knows where and start sleeping on benches and washing my face in
public restrooms.
I do think that for some, we don’t
love what we do. It's somewhat taken for granted that work is 'work' and that
play is play. Though, not everyone has the luxury of having a job that fulfills
them intellectually as well as financially.
I’ve been
rehashing this article:
In "Life Without Principle," Thoreau wrote:
… it would be good
economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that
they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific,
even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who
does it for the love of it.
I kind
of feel a unique guilt when I watch the cleaning ladies in my office empty
trash bins whenever 5PM rolls around. I’ve seen two of them, both being older
Hispanic women who are shorter than average. I wish I could speak Spanish, like
my coworker. I wish I could ask them, “How’s your day?” instead of staying
quiet like I do, staring straight forward at my computer screen.
Perhaps
I’m being presumptive, but I’d feel unfortunate if the cleaning ladies, to
quote Thoreau, felt ‘that they were working for low ends.’
Imagine if we were to fashion a
society where we labor not to simply survive on our own, but to help others to
survive! Where work was less about self-satisfaction but rather for the benefit
of all?
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