what is work?

“Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.”-Thomas Alva Edison

Work is the horizontal flow of value from a supplier to a consumer! From this little definition of work, we can deduce that in order for what you are doing to be called work, there needs to be a transfer of value from you to someone else. Kindly note also that whether or not it’s for profit or for cash is omitted. This is because work does not become work only when it is rewarded, work is work as long as value is transfered. Like I usually say, experience is experience because you did it, not because you were paid for it. In the light of this definition, are you working? Who are you really working for? What value are you supplying? Look critically at the “work” you do, and be brutally honest with yourself, are you working?

Work is as old as man! To work or not to work is not an option, the dilligent person works, and the lazy one is given to forced labour. There is no option to work, there is only an option to who chooses the work for you -yourself or circumstances. There is an alternative to hard work though, it’s hard life!

I personally marvel when I see able bodied graduates boldly confessing to haven been jobless for years! Many are actively unemployed, actively doing what? Actively searching for jobs? By the definition of work, a good number of employed people are not working, but that doesn’t distress me half as much as the thousands of graduates we have on the streets unemployed by the big companies, and sadly unemployed by themselves. Tell me, if you can’t employ yourself, why should anybody else employ you? I think it’s time we tell ourselves the truth, pick ourselves up and apply ourselves. If they don’t give you work, give yourself. Work is the horizontal flow of value from a supplier to a consumer. Think about it, what value can you add, and how can you make that addition your work?

If you desire to work, don’t wait till someone calls you from the interviews you have done? Don’t place your life in the hands of “if it happens?”. More often than not, the people that get offered great work are people that already have experience in one form or the other adding that type of value. Look inwards and discover the work that you can start today, and if you truely want to work, here are some guidelines to get you started.

1. What you do today is what will be called experience tomorrow. Someone once said that good judgement comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgement :). It is also said that experience is what you get just after you needed it. Don’t just sit at home and wait for the opportunity to come, get yourself busy. You can’t sit in the premises and claim to be standing on some promises. Start supplying or adding the kind of value you want to add.

“Don’t waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour’s duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.”-Ralph Waldo Emerson

2. There is no one shoe size that fits all. There is no “one way” that gets to the destination called success. You don’t have to have worked for a big company before you succeed in life. The world is full of examples of people who simply started. Who says it’s better to have corporate experience? Who says you must do, 5, 10, or 25yrs before you start your life’s work? There are no hard and fast rules. If you don’t have work today. Simply start something. Let the call to come and start work in a company be a welcome distraction if you like, but make up your mind that the work you will start to do will help you define standards of what to choose and what not to choose. Don’t just wait for the perfect time, move today. In the words of Pablo Picaso the talented artist, “Inspiration exists, but it must meet you working”. In other words, to be inspired, you need to get busy first.

“Dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you’re willing to pay the price.”-Vince Lombardi

3. Grow deaf! Yeah, you read that right. Don’t go deaf, grow deaf… let it happen gradually:) You’ll hear all sorts of things, like “when will you go out and get a job?”, “I hope you don’t think you have found work?” and more. Don’t you worry, these are the normal chats of concerned fellows. They do it out of love, and no ill feelings, you on the other hand must expect it and be undeterred. At the end all the criticisms will turn to applauds. Stubborness has two sides you know, when stubborness has rewards it’s called perseverance and strong will, when it doesn’t it’s called stiffneckedness. Look for value to add and add it. If you do more than you are paid to do, you’ll soon get paid more than you do. Take yourself out of the crowd of timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat from not having tried.

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”-Theodore Roosevelt