This was a topic introduction I shared at an event called Ideas and Questions Cafe held in Tokyo. These events are intended to promote discussion and exchange of diverse perspectives among participants. They also typically introduce a Christian perspective which is nearly always novel for most participants. You can also view this content in Japanese here.
Today I want to ask “How much should we work?” And by work, I mean not only formal employment but all sorts of things we might not immediately associate with work. In Work: A Deep History, anthropologist James Suzman defines work as “purposefully expending energy or effort on a task to achieve a goal or end”. In other words, trying to do some thing.
And so in addition to jobs or schoolwork, that would include many essential tasks of everyday life, like preparing food, doing laundry, cleaning your residence, paying bills, or fulfilling legal obligations to the government—for yourself, or for the benefit of a child, for example. It even includes things we consider somewhat optional, such as making plans for the future. If you’ve ever felt like it’s hard work to schedule a time to hang out with friends—that’s because it’s a job.
And so the question “How much should we work?” is not a question of work-life balance, but of work-rest balance. Suzman is one of many voices arguing that the amount of time we now spend accomplishing tasks is a recent phenomenon, and that for most of human history we lived much slower lives. Slow life itself—quitting a high-paying or high-status job, moving to the countryside, and living at a much slower pace—is trending as an alternative to the typical image of what a successful life should be. So how much should we work? I’ll share a few options, and then open things up for discussion.
We should work as little as possible (Work is a necessary evil)
In the Enuma Elish, which is a 3500 to 4000-year-old creation myth from ancient Babylon, there’s one of the earliest surviving texts about how people saw work. When Marduk, one of the most important gods, makes the decision to create humanity, he says this:
“I will bring into being Lullû, whose name shall be ‘man’.
I will create Lullû—man
On whom the toil of the gods will be laid that they may rest.”
And so he tasks the god Ea to do so, and it continues:
…[Ea] created mankind,
On whom he imposed the service of the gods, and set the gods free.
…the wise Ea…created mankind
And…imposed the service of the gods upon them….
Essentially the story is saying that humanity was created to do work for the gods, because the gods got tired. They needed to rest and be set free. And that means someone else has to take up the burden of service and toil, and that someone is humanity.
Fast-forward a few thousand years to the present, and many feel more or less the same way. Many strive for financial independence, which essentially means you don’t need a job anymore. The popular subreddit FI/RE, which stands for Financial Independence / Retiring Early, is for users who want to “earn financial freedom and control their own destiny”.
Alternatively, slow life proponent Miy who quit her Microsoft job and moved to rural Japan says, “Peace only shows up when we stop running for something” about her decision to quit.
I don’t want to stretch these illustrations too far, but the point is that work is seen more or less as an obstacle or at best a necessary evil on the path to living a life of rest.
We should work as much as possible
On the other hand, some argue we should work as much as possible—rest is just to recharge you. The industrialist Henry Ford, who is credited with the 40-hour workweek, said, “The idea is rather general (common) that the chief curse of life is to work for a living. Thinking men know that work is the salvation of the race, morally, physically, socially. Work does more than get us our living: it gets us our life.” In his autobiography, he wrote, “…I never left my business. I do not believe a man can ever leave his business. He ought to think of it by day and dream of it by night.” He goes on to apply this to all work, arguing that no one can really succeed without working past formal work hours.
On the opposite side of the economic spectrum, but with a similarly positive view of work, is Karl Marx. Marx argues in Comments on James Mill that by working and sharing the results of that work, human beings are able to affirm both themselves and others. Through our efforts, our individual selves are manifested in object form, validating our existence, and also creating enjoyment for ourselves and others.
Work also brings us into community with others, and grants us a sort of space in the lives of others. Philosopher, scientist, and Marxist Robert S. Cohen summarizes Marx’s attitude towards work like this:
Labor is the very touchstone for man’s self-realization, the medium of creating the world of his desire; and it is labor which should make him happy. Indeed, the essence of man is in his striving to achieve his desires. (“On the Marxist Philosophy of Education”)
And so whether Marxist or capitalist, from this point of view work promises salvation. And therefore rest becomes the necessary bump in the road on the way to the world one strives to create.
A Christian idea of work and rest
Finally, I’d like to share a little about a Christian idea of work and rest.
In the ancient Biblical origin story of Genesis, God is described as working for six days to create the entire world, including human beings. He provides them with all the things they would need to flourish, including food, and then rests:
On the seventh day God had completed his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it he rested from all his work of creation. (Genesis 2:2-3)
Later Biblical writers pick up on this idea and expand it to imply that human beings too were made in order to rest. And yet complementary to this, the Genesis account also indicates that the first archetypal human was given the task of serving in God’s presence as a sort of prime minister over the rest of creation.
In other words, we were also made in order to work with and for God. And so both work and rest are seen as inherent to our elevated status as representatives of the divine. We do not rest in order to work, nor do we work in order to rest—we work and rest because we were made to share in the life of a God who works and rests.
Now technically this could also be a Jewish point of view, since this is from the first part of the Bible, but Christianity takes this idea further by implying that 1) only Jesus Christ actually lived out this sort of life of both fulfilling work and satisfying rest, and 2) only through Jesus can anyone obtain that kind of work and rest.
Jesus saw his entire life as service to God, and yet at the same time his life was characterized by an unhurried peace and freedom. And so to anyone who would become his disciple, he offers both work and rest:
“Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
For the sake of time I’ve had to greatly simplify these viewpoints, so thanks for your understanding. I hope you now have some excellent discussions.
Ben Shimomura 