In a Nutshell

By Igor Shchegolev

There are many opinions about the question, “Why don’t people work?”

Aesop’s famous fable clearly illustrates what the result of not working is.  The ant and grasshopper are opposites in that one of them doesn’t want to work.  People of many generations have accepted the moral of Aesop’s fable as the rule.

According t Aesop’s moral, the ant was right, and the grasshopper was not because it did not work during the summer.  It was singing and dancing all the time and didn’t anticipate what would happen in the winter.  That is a simple moral.  It is also too idealistic.  For Aesop, the world is divided into two groups – the ants and the grasshoppers.  However, people in real life are more varied and complex than the ant and the grasshopper.  Maugham tried to depict the world in more realistic colours.  He showed two brothers, one of whom didn’t work but was still rewarded.  It is the way life is.  So, Aesop defined a rule and Maugham showed that people don’t always want to live by the rules.  Why?  Life is more complicated than an Aesop’s fable because there is a big difference between labour and work.

Most people consider labour as a way to exist, to provide themselves with the necessities of life.  They work in order to live – even if they hate their jobs – and they would not work if they could manage not to.  A work ethic and moral rules have been created by society.  Political orientation does not matter; in any case, society will create conditions that require people to work hard.  In “The Work Ethic is Underemployed”, Daniel Yankelovich considers three conceptions of work: first, as labor, as a way to exist; second, as a way to improve one’s level of life; and third, as a moral necessity.  Some people accept these rules.  They work hard and consider this way of living as the only right one.  They believe that their labor will eventually be rewarded.  They are obvious characters of Aesop’s fable.  They are ants.  And they do labour, not work.

There is another reason that people work.  It doesn’t fit into any of Yankelovich’s definitions of work.  There are some people who work not for money, not for the best possible material life, not because of a moral necessity or society’s rules – but because they cannot live without working.  For them, work is a natural necessity that has nothing to do with either morals or money.

There are three good examples of people who illustrate that work is different from labour.  A good example of someone who could not live without working was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the great Viennese musician and composer.  He could not accept life without making music.  To live without creating music was meaningless to him.  Jack London, a great American writer, spent his entire life in an effort to describe people with strong personalities and willpower, people who were trying to realize the truth about life.  Roald Amundsen, the great Norwegian explorer, sacrificed his life for the work of exploration.  He was the first person to reach the South Pole.

The people I have been talking about lived in order to work.  They considered work something very interesting.  It made existence more exciting; it gave meaning to their lives.  Life and work were the same for them.  However, they don’t fit into the characters of Aesop’s ant or Yankelovich’s workers.  The three of them spent long periods of time without working.  These were times of terrible depression, stress, and even the threat of madness.  Mozart was under a depression after his mother’s death.  The last years of his life, he drank heavily and he died in poverty.  Jack London wasn’t more successful: alcoholism and financial problems led him to commit suicide at the age of 40.  Roald Amundsen was killed during the air search for an Italian explorer, Umberto Nobile.  It would be very simple to say that these people didn’t do any real work because they were lazy or because they could not handle problems due to a weak will.  However, like a glowworm, which does nothing at all, they made a beautiful light through their work.  The light they made illuminated whole generations.

I believe that the difference between work and labour can explain a lot of things.  Sometimes it is difficult to recognize the difference between them, but it is important to do so.  Since earliest times humans have created.  Their creativity has brought the greatest advances and inventions into the world.  Uncreative work, or labour, leaves no trace in history.  The majestic pyramids of Egypt, built through the labour of thousands of slaves but the work of only a few architects, still stand today as a monument to creative work.  They are a combination of work and labour.  So, why are we trying to differentiate the two terms?  First, it is important the difference between work and labour.  Second, it is important t work rather than labour in order to create rather than merely produce.

Work cited:

Yankelovich, Daniel.  “The Work Ethic is Underemployed.”  Psychology Today  (May 1982)

This article is taken from the book “Write to be Read. Reading, Reflection, and Writing” by William R. Smaller, page 102 – 103.  It is an essay written by a student from Azerbaijan.

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Posted on August 16th, 2009 under Professional Writing • Tags: ant and grasshopper, labour, psychology, work. • • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback