The view that work represents an affliction or even a curse stretches far back in our cultural history. In the Book of Genesis, when the first humans are expelled from the Garden of Eden, the woman is told that her labor in childbearing will be accompanied by suffering, and the man learns that the ground is cursed because of him, and only through painful toil will he eat of it. In the very next book, Exodus, the Egyptians forced the Israelites into “hard service in mortar and bricks and in every kind of field labor.” A casual reader of core Western texts might easily suppose that freedom from work is a blessing devoutly to be wished for.
Yet there are good reasons to doubt this assessment. For one thing, contemporary demography provides evidence that worklessness, and especially the loss of the desire to work, represents a grave affliction besetting millions of American males. First published in 2016 and updated in 2022 during the COVID pandemic, Nicholas Eberstadt’s Men Without Work reveals that, despite 11 million open jobs, 1 in 6 men between the ages of 25 and 55 is not earning wages because he has chosen to be unemployed, a number not reflected in federal unemployment statistics.
If work is a curse, this group should be faring well, but there is ample evidence that worklessness is associated with a variety of adverse consequences. These include a strong association with conditions that predispose to poor health, such as high blood pressure, as well as numerous diseases, such as heart attack, stroke, and arthritis. In addition, worklessness takes a substantial toll on mental health and well-being, as manifested by higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide. It is no accident that the opioid epidemic hit hardest in the Rust Belt, where large numbers of jobs had recently been lost. Yet the suspicion that work is strongly associated with well-being is not a new idea.
One of our nation’s founders, Dr. Benjamin Rush, was also one of the foremost proponents of work as a means of therapy for mental illness. A remarkable polymath, Rush’s achievements were many: he was the youngest graduate in the history of Princeton University, one of the Revolution’s earliest and most ardent proponents, a signer of the Declaration of Independence (at age 30), and Surgeon General of the Continental Army. After the Revolution, he became a leading abolitionist, a champion of public education and the education of women, a reformer of mental hospitals and prisons, and a founder of American psychiatry.
The year before Rush died in 1813, having performed one of his most valuable services by orchestrating a reconciliation between the nation’s then-estranged second and third presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, he published his treatise, Medical Inquiries and Observations upon The Diseases of the Mind. In it, Rush acknowledges that physical exercise alone is healthful, likely because it improves the flow of blood to the brain, but he goes on to argue that work offers several additional benefits, which he traces to the fact that it restores habits of action that are “regular and natural.” He writes:
It has been remarked that the maniacs of the male sex in all hospitals who assist in cutting wood, making fires, and digging in a garden, and the females who are employed in washing, ironing, and scrubbing floors, often recover, while persons whose rank exempts them from performing such services languish away their lives within the walls of the hospital.
Rush recounts the case of an English gentleman who came under his care soon after arriving in the United States. He prescribed the usual medicines, which relieved some of the man’s symptoms but did not cure him. Then the man went to live with family in Maryland, where he was lured into helping with the harvest, taking up a rake in his hand and helping to make hay. Writes Rush: “He worked for some time, and brought on thereby a profuse sweat, which soon carried off his disease.” My medical training and experience cast some doubt on the value of a good sweat, but I find the salutary effects of work considerably more compelling.
Rush himself suggests as much by distinguishing between two types of work, bodily exertion and “exercise and diversion of the mind.” He argues that both kinds of work can replace the “antic gestures, listless attitudes, and vociferous or muttering conversations” that characterize those suffering from mental illnesses with “habits of rational industry.” Moreover, such work can supply needed income to family or friends and help to support institutions that provide care. Instead of pitying or fearing the mentally ill, others learn to look upon them with approbation. Once the chains of mental illness had been cast off, a person could then begin to develop the civic virtues so necessary to democracy.
Rush’s theory connecting work and well-being is borne out by contemporary research conducted by the Gallup Corporation. In global surveys of what people want most, the single most common reply is good work or a good job. Some reasons are obvious. Those who lack work are likely to be suffering financially. Yet work also provides opportunities for physical activity, interacting with other people, and building relationships. The best work provides a sense of worth and purpose, enabling workers to feel we are making a difference in the lives of others and our community.
Of course, not all work is good work, and the recent surge in discussions about workplace burnout, quiet quitting, and even workplace violence can be traced to poor work conditions. As the industrial psychologist Frederick Herzberg recounts in the most requested article in the history of the Harvard Business Review, “One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?,” factors such as a neglected workplace, poor supervision, unfair treatment, and inadequate compensation can precipitate severe dissatisfaction, eroding both fulfillment and quality.
By contrast, if we want to do good work, we need to give ourselves good work to do. Good work brings people together, challenges workers, and permits us to keep growing and developing through our work. It also instills self-respect by recognizing people for the good work we are doing, treating us as responsible and trustworthy, giving us a role in decision-making, and enabling us to make meaningful contributions to the lives of others. Those who feel unfairly underpaid will be dissatisfied, but creating opportunities to do good work well is the only way to promote genuine fulfillment.
Of course, good work need not necessarily result in the payment of wages. Among the many examples of unpaid good work are building and enjoying a good marriage, bearing and raising children, maintaining a household, coaching youth sports teams and leading scouting groups, teaching Sunday school, and aiding neighbors or community by doing yard work, running errands, or organizing a block party. The adage that no dying person ever expresses regret for spending too little time at the office represents an implicit critique of wage-earning work, but not work itself.
Good work not only enhances the quality of our lives at work but also helps to instill habits of character that are definitive of virtue and essential to self-government. It teaches habits of dependability, dedication, and resilience. It fosters self-regulation and rewards such desirable traits as creativity and a willingness to take risks. When we feel entitled to what we have produced, we become better guardians of private property, and by extension, our own rights and the rights of others. In these respects, good work constitutes an essential ingredient in the recipe for the flourishing of freedom and responsibility.
Few Americans understood this better than Rush, who, like the other great Benjamin of Philadelphia, Franklin, found the greatest fulfillment in his acts of public service. Rush knew that the United States’ victory in the Revolutionary War did not end but rather began the true work of all Americans:
On the contrary, nothing but the first act of the drama is closed. It remains yet to establish and perfect our new forms of government and to prepare the principles, morals, and manners of our citizens for these forms of government after they are established and brought to perfection.
The opportunity to undertake such work represents not a curse but one of the greatest blessings ever bestowed upon a people.
In helping young men prepare for work, find jobs, and grow and develop through business, trades, and professions, we serve not only their interests but those of society as a whole. We need to recognize that idleness, not work, is the true curse, and that good work affords us one of our best opportunities to become better versions of ourselves and make meaningful contributions to the lives of others. To be sure, we need housing, food, transportation, and the other things wages can buy, but we long even more deeply for challenges and the opportunities that good jobs provide to make a difference. We become our best by giving our best, and work has a vital role to play in drawing out the best in each of us.
Richard Gunderman, MD, PhD, is Chancellor's Professor of Radiology, Pediatrics, Medical Education, Philosophy, Liberal Arts, Philanthropy, and Medical Humanities and Health Studies at Indiana University. His most recent books are Marie Curie and Contagion
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