Work opportunity
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to prove the efficacy of work in pursuing life challenges, achieving satisfaction and growth. The paper refutes the credibility of financial rewards as the primary motivation for work, spare time and leisure playing a huge role in our lives, and the arguments that describe the tediousness, monotony and hazardousness of work to our health.
Thesis statement: work gives us the opportunity to pursue a worthwhile challenge in life and to achieve satisfaction and growth.
Overview
Work is the effort or activity, either done physically or mentally, whose objective is accomplishing a specific goal. Work plays a crucial part in people’s lives. It’s through working that people make ends meet. However, apart from it being a way of supporting our lives and those of our families, there is more than meets the eye. As people, every individual has an inner desire to accomplish a specific goal and become a productive member in the society. It’s by working that these life desires and productivity in the society are achieved.
Work and life challenge, satisfaction and growth
Human life is a motley of action and inaction whereby there is working and resting. It is through working that we break the monotony of life in an otherwise life that could be dull and boring. By working, people properly uses energy which would otherwise bring disorders to people. Working is not necessarily a way of eking out a living, rather, it’s a way of expressing intrinsic human dignity. As Lukman (2012 p. 632) aptly puts it, a threefold moral significance defines work. One of the significance is that it is a way of man’s self-expression and self-realization; the second significance is as a form of satisfying man’s material requirements; and the third significance is as a way of people giving their productivity to the society.
The oft stated reason of working when some people are asked why they work is that they do it for economic reasons, for survival. However, there are a lot of reasons why people work. These reasons include as a way of passing time, experience, egotism, creativity, illustriousness, practice, authority, to learn and for the welfare of the humankind. This is reflected by influential figures in the society who have given up prestigious and well-paying jobs, much to he chagrin of other people, so that they can pursue their life desires such as music or art. In the society, there have been instances of other people who who going on clinging to heir jobs so that they can be recognized by their workmates. To wrap it all up, working for money forms the biggest reason people work, but, people do not work merely for financial reasons. As Edmond Bordeaux Szekely— a philologist, philosopher and a psychologist— soberly piped it, “the majority work to make a living; some work to acquire wealth or fame, while a few work because there is something within them which demands expression…only a few truly love it.”
It is a myth that people work primarily because of financial rewards. This is a stereotypical notion that people work primarily or are motivated by financial rewards. Financial rewards don’t motivate people to work. For many people, money is not an end in its own, rather, its a way of satisfying other needs. As Dr. Andrew described it, financial rewards do not motivate people for work, rather, it represents other motivations. Based on his reference of studies done by organizational psychologists, there are other factors whose level of ranking as motivators exceed its ranking. These factors are health and cultural aspects (Kenneth, 2009). Based on his explanation, people don’t get the money and then stuck it somewhere. Instead, people get money and figure out something they could use the money to purchase or get, like purchasing a house, meals or saving the money for future needs. Therefore, the motivation that arises from financial rewards is a substitute for other motivators, and the ability of financial rewards in motivating is got from the significance of it to get “other items” which give them motivation. Another way of understanding how “other items” are portrayed is explicitly stated by Chuck Tanner, a baseball manager at a major league; he said that, “you can have money stacked to the ceiling, but the size of your funeral is still going to depend on the weather.” Literally, it’s these “other items” that are the primary motivators; the motivation for work got from financial rewards is an avenue of other motivators. In a Fast Company Magazine interview, Eric Raymond —an author, open source software advocate and a computer programmer— piped it that “You cannot motivate the best people with money. Money is just a way to keep the score. The best people in any field are motivated by passion.”
What is important between spare time and leisure, and work has been a controvertible issue. Despite which perception one may look it from, it is evident that work of more important than spare time and leisure. Perhaps this was captured very explicitly by an editor of the Freedom magazine who said that, “leisure is only a problem in a society in which education education is aimed at adjusting the individual to society instead of bringing out and developing the potentialities in him [sic] irrespective of whether they can be translated into hard cash.” As August Heckscher describes in Leisure in America, an essay, leisure or spare time does not mean when one is not working, rather, leisure means “approaching a life that brings joy…not just a distraction, a waste of time, or a way to occupy the hours until one is working again.” The refutation that spare time and leisure play a huge role in our lives is propped up by John (1962); he says that free time is not when “momentary whim is completely in control of our activities, not unstructured time, when we wander without any bounds or limits”. In his opinion, young and old have “a need for such idleness and contemplation”. However, “the times that are most free are those that we find ourselves engaged in what we have chosen. Therefore, since engaging ourselves in what we have chosen is the real free time, spare time and leisure should not play a huge role in our lives.
Work cannot be tedious, monotonous or hazardous to our health. Work is not tedious or monotonous but people make it tedious (Bertrand, 1983). Work does not necessarily translate into getting paid. Work gives us identity, dignity and a feeling of relief. Work done well is satisfying and has got beneficial significance. Based on a research, if a injury happens at workplace, the most effective factor in recovery is staying in connection with the workplace. Work is not hazardous to our health, rather, work has beneficial effects to our health. In conclusion, financial rewards does not form the basis of work motivation, rather, it represents other motivations: it is like a wheel within a wheel. Spare time and leisure don’t play a huge role in our lives, rather, engaging ourselves into what we’ve chosen does. Work is not tedious, monotonous or hazardous to our health; in fact, work define whom we are and are beneficial to our health.

References
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