The Value of Your Work

I was raised to be a good worker, to believe that if I worked hard enough I could provide for myself and that labor itself was virtuous. I was raised to believe that people who don’t work are morally or ethically unsound, and that their value as a piece of existence relied on their ability and willingness to do labor. I was raised to believe that working a 50-60 hour week was inherently a moral good.

As I start to withdraw from the outside world and focus on the spirit, the withdrawal is reflected in my 9-5. I have been suddenly moved to a team where my ability to contribute is highly constrained. I can do very little, I almost cannot contribute anything. Most my day involves being paid to scroll YouTube shorts, read news articles, and browse Facebook. In a few weeks, I went from designing and building event-driven, high throughput and low latency prototypes to doing nothing, hands tied by the seeming inability of anyone to get me the relevant permissions and equipment to work.

For the first week, it really stung. As a woman, I am typically under pressure to constantly prove that I am a worthwhile member of a team in which I am a minority. I’m used to being asked to do impossible things by people who more than half suspect I will fail, occasionally to punish me for violating those expectations.

Now? Now it’s hilarious. Still hurts a bit, but it is really funny.

As much as I told myself I was important, that a company was lucky to have me and that I was a valuable person for the kind of labor I can produce, it does not matter. My labor does not matter. I, in fact, do not matter to the company. I cannot derive pride, enjoyment, or a sense of self from my labor—the things I produce do not matter.

I can at least say that what I do for the spirit matters. I just cannot derive my sense of self from spiritual labor unless I want to repeat this process of humbling so that I will be free of the compulsion to overwork, which is a tool for people to help me misdirect them.

I’d rather not, so I’m afraid I’ll have to view myself as inherently valuable. Just as inherently valuable as everyone else.