Chapter 19: The Human Need for Work
(This is chapter 19 of "Up and Out," a book condensing my long experience about how to best help poor people. I pledged earlier to get it up online as soon as possible, so it would be available for free to everyone trying to cope with helping the Katrina evacuees.)
(These are not things that need to be done during the first part of this emergency. Rather, this is for the time after that, when Katrina evacuees will be moving from getting immediate emergency assistance to trying to normalize their lives. That is when good programs to help them "up and out" of their situation need to kick in. The following is for that time.)
(For other chapters, look under "Categories" and click on the chapter you want.)
UP AND OUT: A GUIDE TO TRUE COMPASSION FOR THE POOR"
PART II: MOVING UP AND BREAKING OUT OF POVERTY
Section 2: Attitude Adjustments for Helpers
Chapter 19: The Human Need for Work
It may be hard to believe sometimes, but work is greatly desired by human beings. Surprisingly, even small children of two or three years of age typically follow a parent around, trying to help them as they work, trying to work themselves in the house or garage or yard, imitating what they see their parents doing.
So profound is the effect of work on us that Rollo May, the great psychologist, stated flatly that the only cure for grief is “time and work.”
Work is still the major way we define ourselves. “What do you do?” is one of the most common questions asked of a new acquaintance. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” we ask children. What we mean is, “What kind of work do you want to specialize in?” “What kind of life do you want to have?”
Our work is a way to contribute our share to the welfare of our family, community, country and world. No wonder so many of us judge our worth, rightly or wrongly, by the work we do.
Work brings dignity. All work, except work that is dishonest, criminal or immoral, is worthy of respect. All honest work adds something of value to society. It supplies something that someone needs, that someone is willing to pay for. It performs a service for that person and others. It adds to the welfare of all.
Some people do not respect work that is menial or dirty. They are making a mistake. A city whose garbage stops being picked up soon realizes the value of the work of those who collect it. The cleaning of our public restrooms, restaurants, and homes helps keep disease and pests at bay. Cleaning is a foundational part of a hospital’s mission of fighting illness and contagion. Those who do such work perform one of the most essential tasks in any society. The fact that some people miss the importance of such work does not affect its true value.
Work teaches us to begin at the beginning. We find that we must start as a beginner and learn the basics before we move up. Many people—including the children of owners of businesses—have learned to their sorrow how much they were handicapped by starting in the middle or at the top, instead of learning the business from the bottom up. (Wise owners start their children there, so that when they inherit the business some day they will not ruin it.)
It is too bad that entry-level jobs are sneered at in some quarters. They are excellent training schools, run by bosses who are used to training beginners in the most basic work habits. There is nothing wrong with having an entry- level job. The only problem comes with staying in one. (Even so, however, many are ideal for the long-term employment of retarded people. After all, they want to work too.)
The importance of work may be seen in the distress of those who are temporarily out of a job. While their biggest concern is about not having a paycheck, they are also uneasy about not being useful and productive. It is not unusual for some to begin to feel worthless.
Work sharpens us. It keeps our minds active and productive. Its demands toughen and strengthen us. It provides discipline that we may not appreciate until we see how sloppy and lazy we can get without it.
Work challenges us. It helps us struggle to accomplish what is hard. It gives us the invigoration of working toward goals. It requires both teamwork and competition. By correcting mistakes and fantasies, it keeps us closer to reality. Work keeps us mentally fit. It makes us capable and experienced. We get better at taking on the world.
What happens when we do not work? The old proverb, “The Devil finds work for idle hands to do,” seems to be proven true over and over. If we do not stay as busy working as we should, we may have entirely too much leisure. How can we tell? We get bored! It takes more and more hype and excitement to counter the boredom.
Children and teens once were kept so busy by work and study that they had little time or opportunity to get into trouble. As recently as the 1930s and 1940s, children began to work for their families at four or five years of age. They were given simple tasks at first, around the home or farm or family business. As they matured, they were given more and more difficult tasks and responsibilities.
Children also took part-time jobs at an early age. Before and after school and in the summers, they delivered papers, collected bottles, sold seeds door to door, swept out stores, worked behind the counter, mowed lawns. They were expected to earn some or all of their money for spending and clothing, and sometimes the cost of their schooling. In many families, they were expected to help support their families.
That is probably one reason that crime rates were so low then, with so little juvenile delinquency. They had little time to get into trouble.
In the years since then, we have achieved such prosperity that most of our children no longer have to work. What has been the result? The major complaint of our teens today is that they are bored! They search harder and harder for something to break their boredom. Some of the things they choose bring them a world of trouble. Too much idleness from too little work has not turned out to be such a great thing after all.
Is it possible to work too much? Of course! Is it possible to work oneself to death? Absolutely! Yet, many of us have found that even overwork can be tremendously fulfilling. Work can be such a pleasure that it can be addicting, causing us to neglect health and family.
There is no doubt that the most fulfilling work is work that is a mission, a calling, our way of making the world a better place. Many have given up everything else, even their lives, for such work.
Then there is the quiet, daily heroism of millions of ordinary working Americans. They live and work and sacrifice for their families, their churches or synagogues, their communities and their country. Not for them the selfish egotism of living and working and spending only for themselves. When they go to work, like it or not, every day, it is because they accept responsibility for the financial support of the people and causes they hold dear. It is through working and earning that they serve others.
They serve without medals. Their silent heroism is not flashy. But the satisfaction it brings is solid and enduring. They can look back on a life well worth living.
Work is a great gift. Life would surely seem puzzling and almost pointless without it. We would be frustrated beyond imagining if trapped in a society where work was not allowed.
With all due respect and honor to many whose lives have been dedicated to working to help the poor, how did we ever come to imagine that we would help the poor by arranging for them to live without working? How could we have distorted their lives in that way? What a huge misunderstanding!
The poor are not less human or capable than the rest of us. If we find work fulfilling, if we have a need for work, so do they. To think they do not is to think that our capacity to be fulfilled by work is something that they lack. That assumes we are somehow superior to them. That over-estimates us and under-estimates them.
The poor need work, for their dignity and satisfaction, for their future, for their children. Their children need to see their major role model, their parent or parents, going to work every day. If they do not, they will not see why they should learn in school. (If they think they will never work, which many think after years of seeing parents and even grandparents who do not work, why bother with learning anything? What is the point? They do not think they will ever need it.) That attitude would continue to undermine and devastate much of our education system.
The poor have a deep need, whether they all realize it yet or not, to become an integral part of working America. We are not concerned enough for the poor if we do not help them to work.
