Love Your Work

Written By Andrew Aviles

THE CLOWN WORKING THE TOWN

I have a vague memory of a series of commercials that impacted me when I was a child. They were 1980’s McDonald’s commercials revolving around breakfast. While I loved a good McMuffin, what stood out about them was the focus on the pride in starting a day of hard work ahead. The McDonald’s employees were working diligently to prep the store early in the morning, get the coffee brewing, and take moments to center as a team before greeting the first customers in for the day who were also getting prepared to go out and work.

While that may be a feel-good marketing campaign to build trust in this fast food chain fronted by a creepy clown, it represents more of the work culture I saw growing up. People used to be portrayed taking pride in their work whether it was working fast food, retail, military, blue collar jobs, white collar jobs, etc. This even showed in the marketing and company cultures like outlined above.

Something insidious has happened, though. Quality messaging about hard work, national pride, and family values started turning into low-attention-span garbage and sensational editing. The media started selling out traditional values for mind altering propaganda to buy more or to be consumed with celebrity culture. Advertising was no longer about selling a service or product, but rather about conditioning and controlling human behavior.

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BUILDING A STRONG WORK ETHIC

Religious values have also been under attack and affecting work ethic. Look at a Bible verse like…  

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance.”

You may or may not believe in God, but you have to admit that working with a higher purpose like this in mind would produce a better sense of pride in your work. Even if you are not religious, knowing that the work you are doing is helping pay your bills, support your family, or prepare for the next stage in life is absolutely worth taking pride in, regardless of what you are doing. If you take on this perspective, life has a way of shifting you toward work and people you enjoy working with.

DON’T BURN YOUR OWN SAILS

When I started working my first job as a teenager, it’s not that I necessarily loved what I was doing, but I was proud that a company saw enough value to hire me, and that through that I was able to support myself financially, work on my education, and aspire toward doing something I do enjoy more in the future. That is something to be able to love. I assumed more people felt this way too, but I was shocked as I saw more and more how apathetic some of my coworkers and managers were.

In that negative state, it is easier to blame outside circumstances for not being engaged with your work, doing something you love, or learning to love something you do – but unfortunately it is that poor attitude that keeps people stuck in life or worse, envying or stealing from other people and companies and even rationalizing it as some strange form of entitlement.

You will be sabotaging your own time and money and progress in life, like being on a ship out to sea and burning the sails. You will sink yourself and constantly bring others down with you.

We all struggle with this in different phases of our lives, but you can check out my post “Design for Life” for some perspectives to work through these hard times and and move toward work you do love.

LOVE YOUR WORK AND IT WILL LOVE YOU BACK

So I say LOVE YOUR WORK, and it will love you back. It doesn't matter if you are working as a cashier, a barista, a janitor – or if you have a crap-tastic manager, or apathetic co-workers – take your mind back, believe in a higher purpose to work for, and take pride that there is worth in what you are doing. If the work itself is so miserable you can’t stand it, be grateful and use it as fuel for the next step in your life. We only have a few years before robots and A.I. take over our work anyway, so let’s stick it to our future robot overlords and show them we enjoy working more than they do.

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS… 

It takes bravery to share art and insight, and the book “Show Your Work” by Austin Kleon definitely helped! Audible has enabled me to listen to great books like this one while driving, working, and exercising. Click here to try Audible and get your first book for free. Audible is a service I’ve personally been subscribed to and have used for many years and I highly recommend it!

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Andrew Aviles
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