The Purpose of Joy at Work

There is no point to loathing our work. We ought to be grateful for the faculties we have been given – our gifts and our heart no less – that we offer in service not to the employer, but to the Creator, God.

Service-station coffee can be a delicacy. As I strode in with my $5 and waited in line patiently with my loyalty card recently, I was called forward to transact with Diane, the efficient and blunt sales assistant. I ordered, and all was pretty ordinary, until she bid me farewell, saying, “Have a great day!” in a tone betraying the sentiment that those words would ordinarily portray. I knew she didn’t enjoy her work. She was frequently rushed, hurried in her thinking, perhaps with other thoughts also weighing heavily on her mind.

I wondered what her life consisted of. But then I began to think of the purpose of joy at work – having always been a believer that work takes up far too much of our lives to be a weight to be carried for sixty years.

There is the purpose of joy at work; to transcend the bars of oppression (whatever they may be) as they prevail as a prison cell before our eyes.

Much work can be chosen, but much work is laborious. Much work is both.

But, if we believe we can carry our attitudes into that workplace, having the right to choose our demeanour, then we have a special gift from God that we can give to ourselves.

Joy at work helps others to see the capacity for it. It shows them the way to hope; a vision of the light of the possible in the darkness of the impossible. It gives meaning to work, and to life.

Joy at work is there if we will choose to open our eyes – those eyes of our heart – to see it. Sure, there is the sense of oppression, but what is it that we choose, just now, not to see?

Joy at work is a purpose transcending those regular periods of hell we struggle to endure.

Joy at work is a condition of the mind; a choice made; of belief entered into; that God has this!

Joy at work is, at the very least, a construction of strength for resilience; to make good from evil; to enjoy that which on so many fronts is an abomination.

Joy at work, finally, is an open door into the next venture. And when that door finally juts ajar, we are ready to push it more fully open, so as to walk right through.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.