by Dr John Evangelista
I caught up with a friend of mine the other week and he proudly mentioned how his 28-year-old
daughter is doing well with her work. However, he hinted he is worried that she is working too
hard and ends up exhausted by the end of each day. This comment led to our conversation on Workism and the Millennials.
Apparently, “workism” (from the millennial lexicon) is a rising trend among the millennial culture which has filtered down to Generation X. Workism as a way of life promotes one’s work as a means to self-identity. It defines who one is and becomes the centre and end of one’s purpose in life.
Young professionals believe that the more work they can do, the better person they become. It is no wonder that young workers like my friend’s daughter experience burnout easily. To a large extent, this accounts for the high incidence of depression and mental health issues in recent years.
How did we end up with work changing from being a means to provide for one’s necessity to
being the end in itself?
Transcendent end of work
Previous generations have always considered work as means to economic or material production. It was a means to provide for the needs of the family and the community. But it was never an end in itself. The end is of a more transcendent nature. Man worked to promote family and community life and a means to render service to God.
St Paul makes it a point to emphasise this idea in his letter to the Thessalonians: “For you remember our labour and toil, brethren; we worked night and day, that we might not burden any of you, while we preached to you the gospel of God.” (1 Thes:2:9). The apostle worked as a tentmaker to support himself and others as they went about in their apostolic ministry.
We read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Human work proceeds directly from persons created in the image of God and called to prolong the work of creation by subduing the earth, both with and for one another. Hence work is a duty: “If anyone will not work, let him not eat.”
Work honours the Creator’s gifts and the talents received from him. It can also be redemptive. By enduring the hardship of work in union with Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth and the one crucified on Calvary, man collaborates in a certain fashion with the Son of God in his redemptive work. He shows himself to be a disciple of Christ by carrying the cross, daily, in the work he is called to accomplish.
Work can be a means of sanctification and a way of animating earthly realities with the Spirit
of Christ. (CCC#2427)
“Workism” – a new religion?
The decline of religion and abandonment of the practice of traditional faith characterises the secular world of the 21st century. The void brought about by this loss of the divine must necessarily be compensated by new forms of atheism. Thus, work becomes a substitute to the divine. Work in itself becomes the centre and
purpose of one’s life.
This “new religion” goes as far as advocating that all laws and policies passed by the state should necessarily always encourage more work to promote human welfare. Inevitably, it follows that “man is for work and not work for man”.
In contrast, the Catechism explains that “in work, the person exercises and fulfils in part the potential inscribed in his nature. The primordial value of labour stems from man himself, its author and its beneficiary. Work is for man, not man for work.” (CCC#2428)
In a way, workism is a child of the humanistic potential movement of the 1960s whose focus was the explicit concentration on oneself and one’s potential to greatness. This way of thinking inevitably displaced God from being at the centre of a person’s life.
Sanctification of ordinary work
One can ask the question: Is there a problem with working hard and working well? We find the answer from the parable of the talents when Our Lord declared that “all those who have more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away” (Mt 25:29).
In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI reminded the faithful of the value of work in our daily lives: “May you as Christians be committed to living and testifying to the “Gospel of work”, in the awareness that the Lord calls all the baptised to holiness through their daily occupations.
Josemaría Escrivá, a saint of our times, notes in this regard that since Christ who worked as a craftsman took it into his hands, “work has become for us a redeemed and redemptive reality. Not only is it the background of man’s life, [but] it is also a means and path of holiness. It is something to be sanctified and something which sanctifies” (Christ Is Passing By, homily, n. 47).
Work is inherently good. God created man to work as part of his human nature. Adam worked in the garden of Eden amidst his original blessedness. It was only after he committed original sin did the toil and hardship accompanying labour enter this world. But with and through redemption, this same work is our way to be united to the Creator. It becomes our path to holiness if it is ordained towards God.
The hardship and toil that accompanies work has a redemptive value. Thus, work does not become a burden when it is done in union with Christ crucified. We end our day exhausted because of our work but knowing that we have done what God has wanted us to do. We joyfully end our day hearing the Lord’s commendation in our hearts: “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Mt 25:21).
Work is not the end in itself. It is the means towards the divine. The work we do does not define who we are but rather we are defined by how we use our work to benefit others and ultimately to give glory to God.
Dr John Evangelista is a medical doctor and practising counsellor. He studied theology and is currently
the Dean of the Catholic Theological College.
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