Love the work you do

‘Choose a job you love to do, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” These famous words, spoken by Confucius, were also my dad’s favourite words as he was trying to motivate us as children through the many debates we had about work.

My dad’s belief was that our work was supposed to make us feel good, respectable and dignified. We should enjoy what we are doing and not feel like slaves.

What is work? My dad worked for 36 years as a salesman at the Cape Town fresh produce market. He left our home after 5am, dressed and clean-shaven, in order to start work at six o’clock every single morning. A simple, hardworking man who loved and enjoyed what he was doing, and did it with so much dignity. This was not work for him, it was a way of life.

When my dad retired, he opened up his own business, a little house-shop selling essential items to the local people in the neighbourhood. I spent many afternoons visiting with him, in his shop, and seeing how he interacted with the customers, ranging from little boys and girls coming to buy a few cents worth of sweets, to elderly men and women coming for bread, milk or cigarettes.

He greeted them in a friendly manner, asked how their families were, treated them with respect and dignity. He loved sales.

This explains why a man who had worked as a salesman for 36 years would choose to go into sales again in his retirement. This was a job he loved to do.

He enjoyed this work, not just because he was making money in his shop, but because of the interaction with other people, the worth he experienced from being of service to them and from his customers’ satisfaction with the service conveniently offered to them. In this we can see that work is more than just making a living. Work is an expression of our dignity.

Work is also a service to mankind. Through our work we co-create with God. We contribute to creating community through our service to each other — community serving humanity.

Work is also an opportunity for us to improve our skills. The more you are at it, the better you become.

Take your own job, for example. Are you more skilled now than you were, say, two years ago? There is an inherent individual benefit to us in the work that we do in that it grows and develops us as well.

So, on the one hand our work puts food on the table, but, on the other hand, our work should give us pleasure: “Also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil — this is God’s gift to man.” (Ecclesiates 3:13)

The Church recognises that “work is the activity of the human person as a dynamic being”, one made in the image of God and enjoying all the dignity of that image.

Jesus was a worker, a carpenter. By doing that job, he elevated work far above the animalistic fight for survival that those in power often try to present labour as for working people.

Human beings are made in the image and likeness of Almighty God. As such, we

each have a transcendent dignity that extends beyond this life and into eternity. The things we do here, including the work of our heads, hands and hearts, is an expression of that innate, God-given dignity.

As we come to the end of our working year, let us remember that our ability to work is a gift from God. Let us experience and enjoy the dignity that comes through our work. We owe it to ourselves to take pleasure and experience joy through the work that we do and that we do it always for the greater glory of God.

Even if you don’t have your dream job, love what you are doing. Remember the words of Confucius: “Choose a job you love to do, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”