Work.
Hear it whispered by those deeply possessed by the wiles of efficiency. Hear it as it drips from the honeyed lips of a perfect future. Hear it slice through the heavy silence of an exam room. Hear it in every clack of a keyboard, every sigh, every footstep, everything.
Bertrand Russell, the British philosopher who believed in the value of leisure, strove to end this insidious succession of work and more work. He believed that if we shortened the work day, we’d be better off. Every person who longs to invent and create, would be able to without wondering where their next meal is coming from.
The notion that the only virtuous pursuit in life is that of noble work, diminishes the necessity of rest and relaxation. We have come to view leisure as passive, something to do when we’ve burnt through our active energies. But Russell had a different approach. He believed leisure to be just as active as work, the flexing of the muscles we don’t use for profit. He believed in the pursuit of creativity, curiosity and education. Not an education designed to groom us solely for success in the workplace, but an education to broaden our understanding of the world around us and those who inhabit it.
Furthermore, it is important to understand the value of living a life outside of work. One of the most common regrets from people on their deathbeds was “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard”. This heartbreaking line was uttered by countless men and women who had lost so much of their joy trying to reach the next rung of the corporate ladder. It is a tragedy how society has manipulated us to think that it is commonplace to miss the youth of our children or the companionship of those we love, to deal with the endless inundation of work.
It’s easy to think that we’re never going to run out of time. That we just need to finish our work today, we can make time for leisure tomorrow. But tomorrow never comes, does it? Anne Dillard said, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”. There will always be more work, there won’t always be more time.
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