Work

उद्यमेन हि सिध्यन्ति कार्याणि न मनोरथैः ।
न हि सुप्तस्य सिंहस्य प्रविशन्ति मुखे मृगाः ॥

Literal Translation:
Work is accomplished only by effort, not by desires. Deers (or animals / prey) do not enter the mouth of a sleeping lion.

Work involves effort and one needs to work in order to get what one desires. Only having desires without working to fulfil them is a futile exercise. No matter who you are, you need to work. Even the head of a company needs to work to achieve results. The lion cannot eat by just imagining that a deer will enter his mouth while he is sleeping. The lion needs to work to get what he wants.

So what is work and why do we need to work?

In Physics work gets done when a force acts upon an object to move it in a certain direction. The amount of work done is directly proportional to the magnitude of the applied force and the distance over which the force is applied. This means that if you apply a greater force, or if the object is displaced over a greater distance, more work gets done.

When we talk about work we more often than not think of working in an organisation or being an entrepreneur or indulging in a craft or skill or performing mundane repetitive work and so on. For work to happen we need to be impelled out of our inertia. This motivating force which works on us could be one of many factors like money, power, status etc. We work to satisfy our needs and wants.

E.F. Schumacher, the renowned economist stated very succinctly his understanding of ‘Good Work”.

According to him there are three purposes of human work: to produce necessary and useful goods and services; to enable us to use and perfect our gifts and skills; and to serve, and collaborate with, other people, so as to “liberate ourselves from our inborn egocentricity.”

This perspective, however, implies but doesn’t emphasise the inner work which each of us needs to do. Our emphasis is usually on the ‘without’, the external, and hardly ever on the internal world which we carry within ourselves. So for instance, we go on acquiring skills to move up the food chain and enrich our portfolio of capabilities. But hardly ever do we give adequate attention to our inner disposition. Not realising that the ‘outer’ is a reflection of the’ inner’. The problems of this world are the result of a lack of work done on our inner condition. There is too much anger, hatred, frustration, suspicion, anxiety, loneliness and unhappiness among us. We urgently need to do our inner work if the world needs to survive. We avoid this type of inner work because it’s the most difficult. The longest road is from the head to the heart. We live our lives in our heads thinking that intellectually we know the answers to all the possible problems not realising our emotions are in a quagmire. Our minds and hearts are not in alignment.

There are times when we thoroughly enjoy the work we do. This is when the work we do matches our skills and has a challenge which we feel capable of overcoming. We experience being in the ‘flow’. However, we seldom get this opportunity of working on something we totally like to do. More often than not there are some aspects which we like and some we don’t. To reduce our disgruntlement we need to consciously choose to like what we do. This does not mean our dislike will disappear but will definitely reduce over a period of time.

There is a fear today of what will humans do in an age of AI. In the age of AI we need to major in ‘Being Human’. We need to experience fully what it means to be a human person. There are many attributes which are distinctly human like experiencing feelings and relationships, being spiritual, having a culture and so on. AI may simulate these attributes but does not possess them. AI may overshadow the intelligence of a human being but lacks a humanistic core. In this context there will be a need to seek how a human-centred future of work with AI will emerge. Where AI capabilities end and human strengths take over. Work will go on. Yes, jobs will be replaced by AI but many more will be created through the human/machine collaboration. Work is at the heart of the human race; its very essence in its journey towards experiencing fulfilment.