Your path in life. Your passion. Your purpose. What it is you are here on earth to do. What it is you would do with your life even if you weren't paid.

28. Two Contrasting Notions of
Work:

29. Work as Economic Necessity:
Paid labor. Wage or salaried
employment . Something you do
solely for monetary and/or
material reward
– to earn a living.

30. Work as Creative Activity:
Developing and practically
engaging
one’s natural abilities in beneficial
social, economic, political, and/or
ecological activities – including
paid jobs, hobbies, charity, etc.

31. Economic necessity of work needs no
justification. Increasingly, however, this
concept of work is being blamed for a
variety of psychological and social
problems, including:

32. Growing interest in work as Creative Activity
seems to reflect its appeal to basic and
inherent human tendencies, including:

33. Here’s a selection of provocative
insights, intriguing perspectives, and
alternative proposals brought together to
encourage and expand meaningful public
and global conversations about earning a
living and, simultaneously:

35. “Man fulfills himself
in work;
properly challenged,
he will strive for
higher goals than
ease or leisure.”
(Anonymous)

36. “I’m looking for
something more
than money out of
my work. I expect
deep fulfillment and
a little fun too.”
(Anonymous Corporation
Executive)

37. “We are predisposed to think that
employment cannot be enjoyable. Work
is work – that is why you get paid for it.
…We have grown to feel that doing
what you want, whether frivolous or
deeply spiritual, is personal and
doesn’t belong in the category of work,
Right? Wrong.”
-Lucy Anderson

38. “When work is
soulless, life stifles
and dies.”
-Albert Camus

39. “Some organizations are only dealing
with the economic need of people ...
That’s why everybody is looking
elsewhere to meet their other needs
and make more meaningful
contributions.”
-Stephen R. Covey

40. “Find a way to
express what
moves you.”
-Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi

41. “A pay check is
not enough to
base one’s self-
respect on.”
-Peter F. Drucker

42. “Work has more to do with the heart
than we have been led to believe …
We are best motivated to work not by
being pushed into it or by outside
compensation, but by inner desire.”
-Matthew Fox

43. “What work is the universe asking of us at this
time? What work is the Earth asking of us at
this time? What work are the other species
asking of us at this time? What work are the
youth asking of us? What work are the future
generations of humans asking of us? What
work are our hearts asking of us? We don’t
need just any kind of work or any kind of job at
this moment in history. What we need is the
right work for the right times.”
-Matthew Fox

44. “Dissatisfaction, apathy, boredom, lack
of joy and happiness, a sense of futility
and a vague feeling that life is
meaningless, are the unavoidable
results of alienated work.”
-Erich Fromm

45. “All social functions are equally
necessary, and those that
perform them are hence equally
deserving
of respect.”
-Jonathan Gershuny

46. “What seems different in yourself;
that’s the
rare thing you possess. The one thing
that gives each of us his worth, and
that’s just what we try to suppress. And
we claim to love life.”
-Andre Gide

47. “Just as there are
unemployed men,
there is also the
unemployed self.”
-Alvin Gouldner

48. “Most workers
believe in the
validity of the very
arrangements that
waste their lives.”
-Alvin Gouldner

49. “The quest for meaning and purpose
is becoming a central focus for many.
… Increasingly, many are finding that
it is no longer enough to ‘have a job,’
or even a ‘career.’ Such people are
looking for deeper meaning in their
lives.”
-Willis Harman and John Hormann

50. “Creative work is
the closest
anyone has ever
come to defining
the meaning of
life.”
-Willis Harman
and John Hormann

52. “Without some cause in which to lose
themselves, some creed in which to
find themselves, or some loved object
of value for which to sacrifice
themselves, men live lives without
point and purpose.”
-Cyril E. M. Joad

53. “What do I care
about so much
that I would pay
to do it?”
-Jon Kabat-Zinn

54. “You can’t buy people’s commitment ...
with ringing bells, thank you notes, or
plaques. ... Overall organizational
effectiveness and efficiency depend on
employees’ personal dedication and
sense of responsibility.”
-James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner

55. “Those who play
for applause,
that’s all they
get.”
-Elias Marsalis

56. “Work is not the secular enterprise the
modern world assumes it is. … Work
affects the soul profoundly … speaks to
the soul at many different levels. … [It]
is the source of meaning and identity,
the roots of which lie beyond human
intention and interpretation.”
-Thomas Moore

57. “Finding the right
work is like
discovering your
own soul in the
world.”
-Thomas Moore

58. “We have spent billions in training
programs trying to change people to fit
jobs and virtually nothing to change
jobs to fit people.”
-Jeffrey Parker

59. “Everyone must learn to believe in
… something so deeply that life is
charged with meaning and a sense
of mission.”
-John Powell

60. “Do you show up to work more for the
paycheck or more for the passion,
because
you love what you are doing?”
-Ricky Rainbolt

61. “You must find a
goal that drives
you despite the
dangers.”
-Robert Scott Root-
Bernstein

62. “Do what makes
your heart
leap.”
-Jonas Salk

63. “The modern world takes a lot of care
that the worker’s body should not
accidentally or otherwise be damaged.
If it is damaged, the worker may claim
compensation. But his soul and his
spirit? If his work damages him by
reducing him to a robot – that is just
too bad.”
-E. F. Schumacher

64. “You can’t mandate motivation.
You can’t force people to enjoy
what they’re doing. Your can’t
bring in an external person to hype
up a group of people and motivate
them, then leave and expect the
people to stay motivated.”
-Marsha Sinetar

65. “If corporations want dedication, if they
want employees to invest their energy
and time, they have to pay them with
something more than money. Because
the money exchange just doesn’t work
anymore. People are not slaves to the
dollar and will no longer work as
material slaves. This seems to be a
tremendous revolution in
consciousness.”

66. “If it doesn’t
absorb you, if it
isn’t any fun,
don’t do it.”
-Logan Pearsall
Smith

67. “Few men enjoy what they do to earn a
living, and those who do are fortunate
no matter how little they make.”
-Philip Van Daren Stein

69. “Do not hire a man
who does your
work for money,
but him who does
it for love
of it.”
-Henry David

70. “Most people are looking for a calling,
not a job; but, unfortunately, are
saddled
with jobs that are too small for their
spirit.”
-Nora Watson

71. “Life’s ultimate meaning, reason, purpose.”
“Deeply fulfilling part of everyday life.”
“Activity that gives the greatest joy and
happiness.”
“The ultimate source of meaning and
fulfillment.”
“The ultimate seduction.”

72. What Local, National, or Global
Issue, or Cause:
Deeply moves you?
Makes you feel “this must be the
reason why I was born, and why I am
here?”