Before our work, our unassailable worth

The greatest protest in our era may begin with doing less

We work to make a living—bills to pay, you know? But as we spend the bulk of our time working, something happens. Our sense of self and worth begins to be fueled by our work. We no longer work to support ourselves but to make sense of our place in the world.

This can also affect our recreation and hobbies. Whatever we do can be co-opted to give us an identity. Even good things that benefit our family and society can become a source of our sense of self. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it can set us up for a great deal of suffering.

More through less

Now that we have settled into our new place after moving across the country, I’ve committed to reading much more fiction, as I did when things were less chaotic.

Early in Rick Powers's book The Echo Maker, a character experiencing a family crisis is introduced. Her brother is lying in the ICU and clinging to life. She feels her moorings slip as she’s taken from her job and routine. But then she goes to work on the phone, trying to attend to some paperwork.

For the hour it took to transact the forms, she felt the release of being useful. The pleasure of it burned.

While I related to the sense of purpose during spiraling circumstances, the sentences caught me deeply. In the throes of changes we don’t initiate, I’m afraid our sense of self, identity, and pleasure of purpose can all take a hit. And that’s a canary in the proverbial coal mine of a poorly constructed identity. There are both ongoing and eventual consequences that harm us and others.

While what we see in this quote is something to acknowledge and celebrate, after all, work has redemptive and helpful aspects; it’s something to build better.

When it all fades

Who are we when we can’t do much? Or our routine accomplishments are out of reach? When we feel inert and incapable? We may be many things, but we are never without worth. Our worth is unassailable and not created by our accomplishments.

“Unassailable”. There’s a word I don’t use enough, partly because it doesn’t apply to much, but it does apply here. It means “unable to be attacked, questioned or defeated.”

As you read that, I’m not looking for a charity head nod; I’m hoping for a deep knowing that will serve you and me as the days of our need for meaning when we can’t function loom on the horizon.

We’ll all come to days, periods, and seasons in which we cannot do the things that gave us a sense of purpose. But more than that, between here and there, deriving our worth from our doing could lead to a cascade of interpersonal challenges. It can make us pretty miserable to be around.

There is an inevitable competitiveness to our existence. We get more oxygen when what we do is better than the next person who does it. When we can diminish and denigrate through judgment what others do as less meaningful or label it a frivolous, vain pursuit compared to our work, we shore up our fragile worth.

You’ve heard and maybe said this: Oh, that? Yeah, I guess some people are into that (eye roll). That dismissiveness is a reflex to keep a fragile sense of worth — safe.

Letting someone have the spotlight, or even steering it in their direction, suffocates us. While we might not attack them directly, we must name their deficiencies, if only in our minds.

Sabbath as protest

Getting this deep into our spirits will take practice, routine, and habituation. In our meritocracy, we are only what we accomplish and how well we accomplish it—every day, all the time. So, having a day every week when you are a human being instead of a “human doing” is more than a command of God; it is a skilled way to assert the truth about yourself.

On a day you don’t accomplish anything, you aren’t obligated to apologize or feel a sense of failure. This will disappoint your instinct and a world that doesn’t know or agree with the truth of your unassailable worth.

Raging against the machine is less violent than it sounds. It’s sometimes merely disconnecting from the myth that we are only a person when functioning for the machine.

Be well friends.