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Lorraine Alvarez Prof. Sanderovsky HUM1023 – Philosophy of Human Nature August 8, 2013 What is work' Merriam-Webster.com defines it as “a : sustained physical or mental effort to overcome obstacles and achieve an objective or result or b : the labor, task, or duty that is one's accustomed means of livelihood”. ("Work") Unless someone is born into a fortune of money or is married into such a fortune, most likely we will have to work at a job so that we may put food on the table for our families, provide a roof over our heads for shelter and provide for other necessary (or sometimes unnecessary) items in life. Our oldest ancestors did not work like we do today, they spent most of their day searching and gathering food for the day; something that had to be repeated daily. (Tony Allen) Most people prior to the Industrial Revolution worked as farmers, though some worked as craftsmen. People lived in communities or villages together and each person had a job to do to help keep the village alive. (A Brief History of Work) During the Industrial Revolution, workers in Britain would work 6 days a week and up to 18 hours a day. Religious organizations got together and suggested early closing on Saturday’s for workers so that they could attend church. The organizer’s argument was that the workers were too tired to come to church on Sunday. By the 1930’s, the weekend in the United Kingdom was finally a reality. The United States didn’t have a full weekend off until just before the Second World War. Henry Ford was a huge proponent of the two-day weekend. (Tony Allen) So, with time we have decreased our work days from 6 to 5 with some now working four ten hour days. John Dupre states that even in the Beginning, work was required in his article: Even a brief history should begin at the beginning. God said to Adam, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to the ground" [Genesis 2:3]. As a later Adam, Adam Smith, would put it, work was toil and trouble. Even in the beginning, work as toil and trouble was contrasted with leisure, ease, or rest, and thus "God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work" [Genesis 3:19]. (Dupre and Gagnier) In a seminar at St. Paul’s Institute, panelist Mary Chapman, Chairman of the Institute of Consumer Service states: “I think that anyone in this room who has experienced the joy of seeing an idea come to fruition, the satisfaction of achieving a difficult task, the warmth of praise or the real pleasure of seeing a member of your team do something well, will readily acknowledge that work can be part of human flourishing. Unfortunately, and equally, anyone who has woken up on a Monday morning with a heavy heart; anyone who has struggled to meet targets that seem unreasonably demanding and bizarre in the way that they have been set; anyone who has experienced the shock and depression of redundancy, will also acknowledge that there is a relationship between work and human flourishing – but, unfortunately, a negative one.” (Work and Human Flourishing) In my opinion, this is a very descriptive view of how work is one part of how humans can flourish in their lives. I believe it is very important for humans to receive praise in their lives in one form or another in order to feel significant in this world. We need to feel needed and one way to receive praise is to have a job in which we can do a good job and receive praise. On the other hand, as stated above, work can have a negative impact on us. But, I also believe that we must learn from our negative challenges in life and must do what is necessary to move on from this negative relationship to a positive one. We need to have a purpose in our daily lives in order to feel fulfilled. In 2 Thessalonians 3:11, the apostle Paul says that those who misuse their time by being idle invite sin into their lives. I believe this goes along with an old saying that my mother used to say “idle hands are the devil’s workshop”. We need to work to flourish, but we also need time for contemplation. In order to have a balanced life, humans should work to flourish their outer selves and have time for contemplation and leisure in order to flourish their inner selves. If we compare and contrast the views of Thoreau and Pieper we see that in both believed in the idea that philosophy should be a way of life for man. (Furtak) They both believe we should look within ourselves to establish a relationship with the world. (94) Pieper states that “the capacity for spiritual knowledge has always been understood to mean the power of establishing relations with the whole of reality, with all things existing”. (98) It seems as though this can be compared to Thoreau as he lives at Walden Pond and establishes a connection with the world around him. In contrast Thoreau believed that he should pursue nature’s guide in order to find out what it had to teach him, whereas Pieper felt that man had “cognition”, something that plants and animals were barred from. (98) Pieper believed that in order for man to understand the natural world, he must first have the proper attitude to receive it. Bibliography "Work". Merriam-Webster.com. n.d. 08 Aug. 2013 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/work. A Brief History of Work. 2012. 8 Aug 2013 http://www.localhistories.org/work.html. Dupre, John and Regenia Gagnier. "A Brief History of Work." June 1996. Questia.com. 8 Aug 2013 . Furtak, Rick Anthony. ""Henry David Thoreau"." Winter 2009. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . 8 Aug 2013 http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2009/entries/thoreau/. Tony Allen, Jonathan Bastable, Ruth Binney, Jeremy Harwood, Tim Healey and Antony Mason. How It All Started. n.d. 8 Aug 2013 http://www.readersdigest.com.au/history-of-work. "Work and Human Flourishing." 13 Oct 2009. 8 Aug 2013 http://www.stpauls.co.uk/documents/st%20paul's%20institute/work%20and%20human%20flourishing%20transcript.pdf.