Labor day. May 1 is basically this blog's birthday. A reason to celebrate the most undervalued instinct of mankind: work. We all want good and fulfilling work. Deep down somewhere it is our very nature. How did Pope Francis write in his 2015 encyclical letter Laudato Si? We were created with a vocation to work.
Watch here my most favorite animation on work: El Empleo
Many people I talk to think that good work has nothing to do with the climate crisis. They are wrong. People who are frustrated in their jobs do not contribute positively to our societies and compensate their frustration with excessive consumption. They might be loyal consumers and obedient citizens but they eat up themselves and the planet.
Ken Robinson explained in his 2010 TED talk that job frustration is a problem of education.
I meet all kinds of people who don't enjoy what they do. They simply go through their lives getting on with it. They get no great pleasure from what they do. They endure it rather than enjoy it, and wait for the weekend. But I also meet people who love what they do and couldn't imagine doing anything else. If you said, "Don't do this anymore," they'd wonder what you're talking about. It isn't what they do, it's who they are. They say, "But this is me, you know. It would be foolish to abandon this, because it speaks to my most authentic self." And it's not true of enough people. In fact, on the contrary, I think it's still true of a minority of people. And I think there are many possible explanations for it. And high among them is education, because education, in a way, dislocates very many people from their natural talents. And human resources are like natural resources; they're often buried deep. You have to go looking for them, they're not just lying around on the surface. You have to create the circumstances where they show themselves. And you might imagine education would be the way that happens, but too often, it's not. Every education system in the world is being reformed at the moment and it's not enough. Reform is no use anymore, because that's simply improving a broken model. What we need -- and the word's been used many times in the past few days -- is not evolution, but a revolution in education. This has to be transformed into something else.
If you are reading this and you are already past your education years, then I invite you to assess your working situation with a few scaling questions. If you score low, consider to quit your job and do something different. Its never too late to move into a career that matters. To you. and the world.
Watch here my most favorite animation on work: El Empleo
Many people I talk to think that good work has nothing to do with the climate crisis. They are wrong. People who are frustrated in their jobs do not contribute positively to our societies and compensate their frustration with excessive consumption. They might be loyal consumers and obedient citizens but they eat up themselves and the planet.
Ken Robinson explained in his 2010 TED talk that job frustration is a problem of education.
I meet all kinds of people who don't enjoy what they do. They simply go through their lives getting on with it. They get no great pleasure from what they do. They endure it rather than enjoy it, and wait for the weekend. But I also meet people who love what they do and couldn't imagine doing anything else. If you said, "Don't do this anymore," they'd wonder what you're talking about. It isn't what they do, it's who they are. They say, "But this is me, you know. It would be foolish to abandon this, because it speaks to my most authentic self." And it's not true of enough people. In fact, on the contrary, I think it's still true of a minority of people. And I think there are many possible explanations for it. And high among them is education, because education, in a way, dislocates very many people from their natural talents. And human resources are like natural resources; they're often buried deep. You have to go looking for them, they're not just lying around on the surface. You have to create the circumstances where they show themselves. And you might imagine education would be the way that happens, but too often, it's not. Every education system in the world is being reformed at the moment and it's not enough. Reform is no use anymore, because that's simply improving a broken model. What we need -- and the word's been used many times in the past few days -- is not evolution, but a revolution in education. This has to be transformed into something else.
If you are reading this and you are already past your education years, then I invite you to assess your working situation with a few scaling questions. If you score low, consider to quit your job and do something different. Its never too late to move into a career that matters. To you. and the world.
| 190503_labor_day.pdf |