One of the greatest (or worst) realizations of recent history is the one where human beings realized that people shouldn’t hate what they do for a living.  It’s great because there’s no reason why people should be unhappy at their work, and God only knows why we have believed otherwise for so long.  Yet it’s bad because our productivity as a human race has dwindled in recent years as we have yearned for more happiness in life and less work ethic.   This is an interesting issue, and is one that I think people should be taking a stronger look at.

Let’s Look At The Positive Aspect

Let’s face it.  Life is too damn short to be spending a good portion of it unhappy.  The average person works 86,000 hours of their life, which is equal to 3,583 days.  Almost 10 years.  That’s a lot of time to be unhappy, isn’t it?  You’re damn right that it is!  Get this, if you’re married, and working a full time job, you’re actually spending more time at work then with your spouse…unless of course, you’re one of the few people to work with your spouse.

The desire to be happy in our day to day lives is a natural one.  Just take a look at any toddlers, who have yet to be instilled with the rules of the world, just observe what they do.  They do exactly what they want to do, that’s what they do!  The belief that we must be unhappy in our day to day lives, (Which is what work is, our day to day lives) is certainly not a natural one.  That is a belief that must be taught.  In our natural state, we are like these toddlers who cherish every moment and try to enjoy every day we are blessed with.

And Then There’s The Negative

Yet, so many people in the past have had the opinion that work shouldn’t be fun.  There’s a reason why there’s two separate words for work and play, after all.  They can’t coexist.  They can only exist as two different things.  There is a time for work, and a time for play!  And if you are an entrepreneur, then you’re not going to grow and learn new skills if you are not pushing past your comfort level and doing the “un-fun” things.  If you’re only having fun at work, then you are staying too far within your comfort level, aren’t you?

So are these people right?  When one person looks at the industrial age of the early 20th century compared to this age, it’s hard to argue that the human race, despite being much bigger 100 years ago, is much less productive than we we were back then.  Look at all of the things humanity has accomplished since 1909.  Companies such as Hallmark, Amoco, Hilton Hotels, Malt-O-Meal, RCA, United Artists, Merrill Lynch, BMW, Boeing, Chevrolet, Columbia Pictures, Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios were all founded during the 1910′s alone.  Then the with the 1920′s came movies with sound, the emergence of radio, enclosed cars, penicillin, and long distance phone calls.  These advances came through hard work and innovation, not treating life as one giant playdate.

But What Are We Working Towards?

After all of our advances in quality of life, architecture, food, electronics, computers, entertainment, and everything else, people aren’t working any less nowadays.  If anything, people are working more than ever.  And not only that, people are working more shifts.  We’re sacrificing our home and social lives so that we can continue to plow away at our jobs, day in and day out.  Some of us work day AND night shifts.  Some of us work multiple jobs.   Some of us are forced to look for multiple revenue streams.  Not everyone who sells items on eBay do it because they are bored, after all.

So what is it that we’re trying to work towards?  The human race is a giant ant colony on this planet of ours, and just like ants, we refuse to slow our pace, and we refuse to stop working toward this eventual destination that we aspire toward.  We are marching forward to our destiny, blissfully unaware of what awaits us on the horizon.   We are building the future, and yet we have no idea what that future is!

Here’s My Interpretation

I believe that the very meaning of life is creation.   We are on this planet so that we may create.  It is in our genetic makeup.  It’s what makes us sexual.  It is what makes up wake up and punch the clock five times a week.  It’s what makes the amateur musician spend his precious spare time making music and performing in nightclubs.  It’s what makes life worth living.  It’s the fuel for all of our ambition.  It is what drives us forward toward our eventual goal.

It is this unwavering desire for the human race to continue to create things that makes me believe that we all have a greater purpose.   We have a greater purpose together, and we have a greater purpose individually.

Your Greater Purpose

The definition of work is the pursuit of realizing our greater purposes.  For some of us, it will take more time and effort than for others.  However, we are all on a path toward our destination, and we will not get there automatically.   Whether our jobs involve providing food for each other, or entertaining each other, we are simply programmed to be at our happiest when we are on the path toward our greater purpose.   This is why I believe that work should be fun.  If it’s not fun, then you are not on the right path.