The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life from Work

by Simone Stolzoff

He who knows he has enough is rich.

“I sleep late, catch a few fish, play with my kids, take a nap with my wife, and then join my buddies in town to drink wine and play guitar,” the fisherman responds. The businessman is shocked. He explains that he has an MBA, and that if the fisherman follows his advice, he could help him grow his business. “You could buy a bigger boat,” the businessman says, “and then use the proceeds to open your own cannery.” “Then what?” the fisherman asks. “Then you could move to the city to open a distribution center.” “And then what?” “Then you could expand your business internationally, and eventually take your company public,” the businessman says. “When the time is right, you can sell your shares and become very rich!” “And then what?” “Well, then you can retire, move to a small fishing village, sleep late, catch a few fish, play with your kids, take naps with your wife, and join your buddies in town to drink wine and play guitar.”

For Americans, “What do you do?” is often the first question we ask when we meet someone new.

But in the United States, how we make money is shorthand for who we are. Our livelihoods have become our lives.

over the course of the twentieth century work has evolved from a chore to a status to a means of self-actualization.

the same Americans who can afford to work the least are working more than ever.

Here, capitalism is not just an economic system; it’s also a social philosophy—a philosophy that says a person is as valuable as their output. In the United States, productivity is more than a measurement; it’s a moral good.

While conventions around how, when, and why we work have since become standardized, they are neither natural nor fixed. They were negotiated before and can be negotiated again.

“Work will always be work. Some people work doing what they love. Other people work so that they can do what they love when they’re not working. Neither is more noble.”

too many people bring the best of themselves to work, and bring the leftovers home. When we give all of our energy to our professional lives, we deprive the other identities that exist within each of us—spouse, parent, sibling, neighbor, friend, citizen, artist, traveler—of the nutrients to grow.

Psychological research shows that when we invest, as Divya did, in different sides of ourselves, we’re better at dealing with setbacks. In contrast, the more we let one part of who we are define us, the less resilient we are to change.

if you cultivate greater self-complexity and distinct sources of meaning, you’ll be better equipped to weather the inevitable challenges of life.

“I know my price,” she said. “Because I developed my identity outside of work, there’s a cost that if work cuts into it—if it ever costs me a larger part of my identity and my life—I know it’s not worth it.”

Worship beauty or money or power and you’ll be left feeling as though you never have enough.

one of the great ironies of the twenty-first century: the reward for professional success is often just more work.

“Finding meaning from multiple parts of my life means that when a setback comes in one aspect, it doesn’t sting as much,”

the workplace is just one container with one definition for what makes a valuable life.

One common trait that researchers have found that correlates with meaning is high levels of what they call “self-determination.” In other words, people are more motivated and fulfilled when they determine what they value for themselves.

when you don’t take an active role in determining what you value, you inherit the values of the systems around you.

when you invest in multiple sources of meaning—when you, like Ryan, hold multiple definitions of what makes life valuable—you invest in yourself in a wa...

From the moment we ask children what they want to “be” when they grow up, we exalt the dream job as if it were life’s ultimate objective.

For those who have found a job that they enjoy, expecting it to always be a dream is a recipe for disappointment.

“Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” cliché in favor of a new phrase: “Do what you love and you’ll work super fucking hard all the time with no separation or any boundaries and also take everything extremely personally.”

Ignoring workplace malpractice is common in so-called labors of love. The idea that library science is a “sacred duty” is the same philosophy that encourages underslept healthcare workers to “put the patients first,” underresourced teachers to “just make do with what you have,” and unpaid college students to take an internship “for the experience.”

Promoting the message that a profession is inherently righteous allows people in positions of power to characterize injustices as isolated incidents rather than systemic failures—if they’re even discussed at all.

“If the language around being a good librarian is directly tied to struggle, sacrifice, and obedience, then the more one struggles for their work, the ‘holier’ that work (and institution) becomes.”

Low pay, unfavorable benefits, and poor working conditions are often the sacrifices workers across industries must make for the privilege of following their passion.

A job will always first and foremost be an economic relationship.

Following your passion works best for folks with the privilege to manage the inherent risk of doing so.

“Most of the time, all that passion will get you is permission to be paid very little.”

Psychologists use the term “enmeshment” to describe when someone’s interpersonal boundaries become blurred. Enmeshment prevents a person from developing an independent self, as their personal boundaries are permeable and unclear.

work has become many Americans’ primary social circle.

“I don’t think you can be in full community with someone who has the ability to fire you.”

Even the language we commonly use for rest—unplug, recharge—presumes rest is simply a prerequisite for getting back to work.

Goal-oriented hobbies like signing up for a marathon or reading a certain number of books in a year can provide accountability to do things outside of work. But striving for a goal still imposes a frame of improvement, which implies work in a fundamental sense. This isn’t to say these types of hobbies are bad. But I can’t help thinking that, through all of our quantified ambition, we lose sight of the wisdom we all knew as children: the joy of play.

you can’t think yourself to better action, you’ve got to act yourself to better thinking.

“Cultures that say their workplace is like a family are almost never to employees’ advantage,”

Families and businesses have fundamentally different goals. What companies generally mean when they say they’re like a family is that they look out for their employees. Familial relationships, however, are unconditional. At-will employment, by definition, is not.

researchers also found that workplaces with close ties among employees can inhibit knowledge sharing across the organization, as information travels through the bonds of social ties rather than through channels visible to everyone.

Employees need contractual protections, not corporate sweet nothings.

Every year, the average American works about six hours per week more than the average Frenchman, eight hours—a full workday—per week more than the average German, and three and a half hours more than the notoriously overworked Japanese.

Frederick Winslow Taylor. Though Taylor died over a century ago, his Principles of Scientific Management remains one of the most influential business books to this day.

“Do I believe that in our one short human life the thing that gives my life value is contributing to corporate work that has economic returns?”

wanted to be compelled by awe and wonder,” he restated, as we weaved through the dappled brush. I might have smirked if not for the earnestness in his voice. “I wanted to steep myself in nature, and see how I fit into this world. That’s how I wanted to spend my life,” Josh said. “And that was totally contradictory to everything I had trained on professionally.”

Brain scans show that idle time and daydreaming create alpha waves that fuel creative insights and innovative breakthroughs. In one study, four days hiking in nature without access to technology increased participants’ creative problem-solving ability by as much as 50 percent.

“People realize that material betterment is no longer the single most important source of meaning in life.”

Every minute you rest is a minute your competitors get ahead, or so the logic goes. But that belief is built on the faulty premise that there is a direct relationship between hours and output.

In addition to the business case, there’s also the moral one. We shouldn’t work less just because it allows us to be better workers. We should work less because it allows us to be better humans.

Yes, working less helps us be more productive. Yes, rest helps our brain function and improves our health, our mood, and our body’s ability to heal. But in addition to all of that, more time away from work allows us to be better friends and neighbors. It allows us to pick up our kids from school and have dinner more often as a family. It allows us to exercise regularly and read for pleasure and create art that no one has to see. It allows us to find time to get involved in local politics and to take a nap when we’re tired. Put simply, working less allows us to be fuller versions of ourselves.

people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.”