Health and Work

The psychiatrists tell us that people without work are much more likely to become emotionally ill. The epidemiologists and preventive health specialists tell us that diseases such as tuberculosis are more common in people when they are unemployed than they are in the same people when they have a job.

How much we like our job depends more on us than it does on the work we do. We give meaning to our work rather than the other way around.

You may remember the story of the man who interviewed some workers building a cathedral in medieval France. On querying the stonemason about his work, the mason replied, "Well, my job is to shape these stones, but the overseer is an idiot, and insists I do it a certain way. And those tools are not the best. I can't wait until we're done." And on asking the stained-glass worker, the answer was, "They could be doing a lot better at this but all they care about is the budget. I burned my hand the other day on some hot lead, and cut myself last week. I hate this." And on his way out of the cavernous, half-finished building, the man asked an old woman with a broom what she was doing. And she replied, "Oh, I sweep away all the dust and litter left by these wonderful stonemasons and glasscutters. I know it isn't a grand job, but I look at this magnificent cathedral rising from the ground, and I am thrilled to think that I have a part in it."

When the Buddhists talk about right livelihood I like to think that they are talking about what we put into our work. I do not think that they rate one kind of work over another. In each kind of work we can glorify this world in which we live, be we a sweeper, or a teacher, or a soldier, or a dishwasher. And when we can see how lucky we are to have our work, we are nourished and healed. No medicine is greater.

This stirring poem by Marge Piercy also casts light on the healing power of work.

The people I love the best
Jump into work head first
Without dallying in the shallows
And swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
The black sleek heads of seals
Bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
Who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
Who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
Who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
In the task, who go into the fields to harvest
And work in a row and pass the bags along,
Who are not parlor generals and field deserters
But move in a common rhythm
When the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
Has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
But you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
And a person for work that is real.

3/28/04