Aug 07 2008
The Puritan Work Ethic
Most Americans, regardless of their personal religious choices, have grown up under the influence of the Puritan Work Ethic (or Protestant Work Ethic). According to Wikipedia, the PWE emphasizes the necessity of constant labor and diligent work in order to attain grace and salvation. After all, idle hands are the devil’s playthings…
In more modern, secular terms, hard work (and I don’t know about you, but I think of “work” as something I don’t enjoy and don’t necessarily want to do) is the key to happiness and financial success. No pain, no gain, right? Many of us believe that we are so fundamentally undeserving that we must earn our happiness and success through blood, sweat, and tears. (This doesn’t really make sense when you look at the world around you, does it? How many people do you know who’ve worked hard all their lives and are neither happy nor financially successful?)
Hard work is also seen as a moral virtue. Nothing worthwhile is easy. Hard work = good and industrious. No hard work = bad and lazy. So if you’re not working hard (i.e., not expending great effort on a task you’d probably rather not be doing), you’re most likely doomed to failure and you’re not a very good person, which probably leaves you plagued by guilt and self-loathing whenever you do something you actually enjoy.
I’ve been thinking about this mindset lately and the impact it must have on our willingness to pursue our passions. For example, writing doesn’t feel like “hard work” to me because I enjoy it. If it’s not hard work, then (according to the trusty PWE) it’s not “good” and it won’t make me happy or successful. On the other hand, I have my day job, which is unpleasant and constitutes “hard work” BUT, true to the PWE, earns me a good salary. Looking at the situation from this perspective, it’s not at all surprising that I’m anxious and unsure about quitting my day job to write full-time.
How does the PWE influence your thinking about work and your career? Do you feel that the PWE mentality is holding you back?
I’m curious how the PWE explains the situation when someone enjoys what they do AND it provides a good income? Isn’t this mindset changing as we see more and more people change career paths throughout their lives in pursuit of something more fullfilling or closer to their heart?
I’ve been there, doing the thing I hated just so I could pay the bills…I am trying to move away from that - it is difficult to give up some things but only because I feel like my security blanket is being taken away from me.
~K
I’m not sure I suffer this mentality.
I’m right with you on this one. I know that writing is a “real job,” and there are plenty of people who make a living from it…but it can certainly be difficult (especially if you’re a freelancer, someone who’s not well-known and having to search for work).
I don’t think it’s impossible to have a job I love (like writing) that also pays the bills, but at this point I haven’t figured out how to take the plunge while still having enough income coming in.
I like this topic because I think it shows such a generational divide. Lifehacker, ProBlogger, Web Worker Daily - these “productivity” sites - talk about a new way of working through the day. Instead of a long steady work day, people are moving toward a “bursty” way of working. And when I was trying to explain to my grandfather what I do for a living, which involves a lot of social outreach, I felt like an idiot because I couldn’t explain why I feel like reading blogs to see what the general trends are is part of my job, to him that seems like idle time! In any case I think this “bursty” way of working allows for people to engage more in what they are passionate about and find a way to get paid for it.
And not to sound too much like a marketer, but I’d love to send you some books we have on the subject (perks of working in publishing. and I swear, this is not a marketing ploy.)