Love The Work
Contrarian Advice for the Avocado Toast Generation
Shemaiah used to say: love work, hate acting the superior, and do not attempt to draw near to the ruling authority. (Pirkei Avot 1:10)
What does it mean to “love work?” Part of the answer lies in the negative advice that follows: those who love work hate acting the superior and avoid drawing near to ruling authorities. To love work means loving it for non instrumental reasons: work is not a means to status or power, but a noble end in itself. Work, according to Shemaiyah (a sage contemporary of King Herod), is also not something we should try to avoid by playing politics. Most radically, Shemaiah suggests that real value is generated not by the manager or executive but the individual contributor. Or, in Hegelian terms, it is the worker, not the owner, who generates alpha.
“Love work” is different than “Love what you do”—for the injunction is less about finding the right work to love and more about finding any work to love. If romanticism suggests that there is only one thing that you can do and be happy, Shemaiah’s approach is closer to the logic behind arranged marriage: once you are prepared to love work your work becomes lovable. Meanwhile, the FOMO caused by wondering “Am I in the right line of work?” leads to restlessness. As the average time in any one job or company declines, one contributing factor may be the grass is always greener effect. A person who eschews status will not be as prone to this fallacy.
But what about the diplomat or the political operator whose work it is to come close to kings and queens? How can they follow Shemaiah? Here, it’s different—the work itself is diplomacy. You can work in government and love the work. But you can’t work in government to avoid work. Wherever you are there is “the work” and there is the status game and the politics game. Don’t mistake the latter for the former.
Machiavelli would disagree: the politics game is fundamental. You need to cultivate esteem and generate support to do anything in this world. Those who just pursue “the work” are naive and ineffective. We can integrate the critique, though, and say, that this rendering of Machiavelli defines “the work” too narrowly. You have to care about the outcome of your effort—that, too, is work. You can’t build a great product but fail to sell it and say that you loved the work. If you love the work, you’ll do what it takes to ensure that you can do it. That may feel like compromise but it’s categorically different than the person who simply wants to play at working.
Whatever the work is that you are doing, love it, and commit to it. If it’s activism do that. But don’t do photo-op activism. Circulating another petition and getting people to sign a letter that will be forgotten in a month is most likely not “the work,” but we can’t rule it out without further information. Only you can know if you are loving the work or acting the superior. But it’s a good meditation exercise: Does this action support “the work” or is it merely putting on airs or sycophancy?
Note that the two behaviors contrasted with loving the work are mirror images of each other. In one, you play the king so as to rule through a kind of social despotism. In the other, you ingratiate yourself to the king, making yourself inferior, so as to garner protection and affection through flattery.
Shemaiah doesn’t say “love the work” because it will make you rich, or make your work better, or make you a more fulfilled person. The implication, therefore, is do it because it’s self-evidently the right thing to do. Those who know know. But it’s safe to add that the opportunity cost of not loving the work—of loving something else—is that the work will suffer.
Shemaiah also doesn’t say that “the work” is what you do for pay. Read expansively, “the work” may be anything you do to better your lot, in contrast to rest or Shabbat, which can be thought of as the state of acceptance. This is the spiritual meaning of “love the work”: work is predicated on the idea that the world is deficient, that things could be better. Rather than focus on why this deficient state is unfair or painful, one should love the opportunity it affords to do the work.