Work Is at the Root of Meaningful Life, the Path to Individual Independence, and a Necessity for Human Survival and Flourishing. It Is Also the Distinctive Means by Which Men Concretize Their Identity as Rational, Goal-Directed Beings."(

David Rukhadze

Professor R. White

BUS 340b

3/5/2011

"Work is at the root of meaningful life, the path to individual independence, and a necessity for human survival and flourishing. It is also the distinctive means by which men concretize their identity as rational, goal-directed beings."(Younkins)

The role of work in human's life is much greater than people often assume. In twenty-first century the unemployment rates decrease and having a job is not a great privilege for the citizens of the developed world. It is just an everyday boring routine and the employees look forward to the week-end, holiday or a long vacation. In more extreme cases they dream about the day they will retire. However, sometimes a long vacation makes one think what the life would be without work. In this essay, I will argue that work is a root of an active, meaningful life and it promotes humans to be goal-directed beings (quotation marks?)

Let us take a look at the general concept of working. First of all, I have to define that by working I mean "any physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something". Thus, playing football might be perceived as a work if it is done for the purpose of training in order to become a professional football player. Secondly, let us think about what price does work have for the humanity, and where we would be now without it? Working means Productivity. Human beings need to be productive to exist. Nonetheless, this does not mean that people work only for the sake of existence. Through productivity human achieved civilization, better living standards. Through work, mankind made unbelievable advances in his possibilities. For instance, the number of people in our planet is increasing in a very rapid way and yet this does not cause the impoverishment of our race. On the contrary, we set more and more challenging goals and as the history has proven, it is only a matter of time until they are accomplished.

Work is one of the fundamental purposes of human. According to the classical thinkers, every living organism has its reason to exist. They have the potentiality embed inside them to become something, to be perfected, fulfilled in some specific way. A child is brought up in order to become a worthy part of the society - an Intelligent, hard-working, rational being with clear goals and ambitions. A Human cannot have a purpose if he/she does not work. People have free-choices, but that does not mean they can choose not to do anything. They have a choice in deciding about the way they will use their potentialities. If they decide not to work, that means they will not serve their purpose - fulfill whatever they are meant to do in their lives and mature as adult, reasonable persons. Human beings have their natural end. They have a need for the feeling that they are actually serving their natural end. Without this feeling an individual does not believe that he is doing the right thing and, consequently, cannot be happy.

Protestants believed that every human has a calling - something that he is meant to do, the profession that best suits him. Working was perceived as obedience to God. It was being supposed as something extremely noble, human and honorable. They believed that God created universe, but it is not complete and through working humans continue God's work. God gave people specific talents. Thus, we are all unique and so is our calling. It is not based only on our abilities, but on our attractions as well. Humans have to find a job that they enjoy doing. It is not easy and sometimes mistakes are done in search of the calling. People take the wrong path and need some time to realize that they need to change the direction. One has to be patient and ready to experience vain hopes and frustration. However, if a person gets lucky and finds his calling, than his job is going to give him a great pleasure.

Some people perceive calling as something completely secular, because they are not comfortable with the religious language. In other words, some people don't believe in God and they don't see anybody calling them. Nonetheless, the link between the interpretations of human life by believers and non-believers is pretty strong. If the religious person does not try to serve his purpose he fears that God maybe disappointed of him. Atheist examines himself from the impartial position and avoids pretty much the same disappointment, the only difference is that he believes it is his own not the God's one. The non-believers "are likely to have just as strong a sense of calling as religious persons, although they would not use the word God". They also believe that person needs to form his identity and find the way to fulfill himself in order to be happy.

Calling makes humans "goal-directed beings" (Younkins). First, we strive to find our "spiritual direction"(Younkins). If we succeed, than our goal becomes to perfect ourselves in that direction. We are ready to bear pain if it serves our purpose. For instance, the three hundred Spartans died happy in the Thermopylae pass, because they had the "knowledge, that they did what brave young Spartans ought to do to protect their city, no matter the taste of ashes in their mouths" (Novak) Likewise, working implies facing obstacles. Sometimes one might wish that his calling did not put so many hard tasks in front of him. However, this is temporary. The sense of duty and serving their purpose renews people's energy. Dealing with obstacles raises ones self-esteem and broadens his imagination about how to enjoy his work.

Working gives a great creative pleasure to people. Doing something useful, something of value brings a great satisfaction to people. Individuals are proud if they create something. They get pleasure by looking back at the time when there was nothing but an idea and everyone thought that it was just a dream. They enjoy remembering how they were completing their creation step by step. People get a sense of satisfaction that they have proven to themselves and to everyone that they are worth something. This feeling is so pleasant that it encourages us to strive for new goals and challenges in order to have new achievements.

Calling is the key to the true happiness of the human being because it leads to "the most important thing people wish to satisfy"

In order to be happy, an individual must be in control of his life. Happy life should be a result of