Work or Leisure? Both are Hard

There is no doubt that we live in the totalizing world of work. Everything around us, from a young age, is always focused towards modernity’s telos: how much will you produce? We ask young kids what they want to be when they grow up, we ask high schoolers where they want to go to college, and we ask college students what they study and what career they will pursue. Even the first question we ask people in adulthood is, what do you do for a living? Weird question if you think about it, “What do you DO for a LIVING?” This question presumes that living is based exclusively on your work. Perhaps, in some regards, it is; we do need money in order to have food, shelter, and other necessities, but to live by something is a much greater claim than simply your value to the United States’ GDP.

In the totalizing world of work, we have lost ourselves and what it means to be human. We have forgotten that there is more to life than simply our salaries, job titles, and the next move. Even in college, we are constantly surrounded by work, work, work. This appears everywhere—from the Career Center emails, to the career fairs, to advising sessions, networking events, and peer-to-peer pressure of staying ahead. We cannot escape the LinkedIn notifications.

Most people would agree that there is more to life than simply work, but what is it then? What will relieve me of the hard work of laboring for green pieces of paper? What is it that I seek if not work? The answer is simple: you yearn for leisure. Leisure is not sitting on the couch, stimming out’ watching Netflix, looking at TikTok, and eating candy. This is not leisure; this is what Josef Pieper in Leisure: The Basis of Culture calls acedia, or sloth. Acedia is a refusal to affirm one’s own existence and the world as good. It is a denial of the self, a denial of the soul, and a denial of one’s own happiness and virtue. When we are doomscrolling or aimlessly working away, we might feel ‘productive’ or ‘relaxed,’ but we are not.

We are still overcome with inner restlessness and an inability to find meaning and goodness. Leisure, as Pieper argues, is a state of the soul, similar to Aristotle’s argument that Virtue is the state of the soul created by the habituation of choosing the mean that lies between two vices. Pieper argues that we have to open ourselves up to the world, affirming not only the world’s goodness, but our own. This is achieved through contemplation. Contemplation is not mindless, aimless, busy work. It is a state of full actuality or full action; we are most active and most fulfilled when we undertake contemplation. Leisure is to sit still and find interior calmness—contemplating by thinking deeply and listening to others, the world, and ourselves—in celebration of life and its gifts and finding gratitude in life, seeing that not everything has to be earned or ‘worked’ for. By doing this, we affirm our personhood as something that is more than a ‘producer’ or ‘worker.’ It affirms that we are human persons first and foremost before all else. When we affirm this, our souls are brought to life in a profound and great way. We can find contentment in the world around us, even if things are not perfect or going to plan. We recognize that there is a beauty and goodness to the world that is beyond being a wage slave, and that we are beautiful, worthy, and dignified people–even if modernity fails to see us.

Pieper calls us to reject the narrative of modernity that your worth, your value, and your purpose as a human person is how hard you work, the titles you achieve, and the amount of money you can amass. Pieper says this is the wrong way to live life, that this way is a rejection of your personhood and your soul. He instead calls us to leisure–an intrinsic good–to affirm our goodness and affirm our human dignity as something beyond productivity, and instead, our goodness is connected to our ability to think deeply and resonate with the world and the people around us. Pieper calls us to a higher purpose and a deeper state of reflection, which requires us to resist the temptations of modernity that seek to reduce us to a machine, a half-human, dimly lit souls. Pieper inspires us to ignite our souls, bringing them to a raging furnace filled with light, that guides and inspires others like a lighthouse guiding a ship. It is when we do this that we become most human and most fulfilled.