In an interview late in his life, the psychologist Sigmund Freud was asked to expound on what he felt were the most important constituents of life. His answer was “Liebe und Arbeit.” Love and work.
This is hardly a surprise: for most of human history, the meaning of life and the meaning of work intersected at survival. Life was work.
When cheap energy and mechanization started us down the path of unimaginable increases in productivity, some philosophers and visionaries began speculating about how we would use the extra “leisure time” we would gain from all this productivity. The reality has proven much different than projected. How do we spend the “extra time”? We use it to work, especially those of us in the post-war boomer generation who value the work ethic and high- achieving lifestyle.
Yet for many boomers, work they would call “meaningful” remains elusive. It is difficult to pinpoint what is missing or what it is that would give their work lives meaning. What would be meaningful work for you?