Topic: the question of work
It begins to feel as though you’re failing at life, in some indistinct way, if you’re not treating your time off as an investment in your future. Sometimes this pressure takes the form of the explicit argument that you ought to think of your leisure hours as an opportunity to become a better worker (“Relax! You’ll Be More Productive,” reads the hea... See more
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
Two-thousand years ago, concepts of work and leisure were associated with servitude and freedom, respectively. In Ancient Greece, explains Aeon, most of the labour was outsourced to slaves, while wealthier parts of society pursued other activities. “Leisure was an active state of mind. Good leisure meant playing sports, learning music theory, debat... See more
Aysha Imtiaz • The way we view free time is making us less happy
Instead, they’re potentialities to be harnessed. If we can structure meaning and freedom into our work now, we see the Tom Sawyer Effect—work goes from being an obligation to a choice. It’s no longer something we’re obligated to do, but something we seek out.
Taylor Pearson • The End of Jobs: Money, Meaning and Freedom Without the 9-to-5
a shift occurred when the Romans started viewing leisure as a way of recuperating in preparation for more work, a transition that accelerated significantly during the Industrial Revolution.
bbc • The way we view free time is making us less happy
The Greeks also saw work as a curse. The Greek god of hard labor was Ponos, taken from the Latin poena for sorrow. Manual labor was for slaves, and hard work was looked down upon. Plato and Aristotle believed work was for the majority so that the elite might “engage in pure exercises of the mind—art, philosophy, and politics.”
Taylor Pearson • The End of Jobs: Money, Meaning and Freedom Without the 9-to-5
Ideas related to this collection