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Working for love.

29 April  2007                                                                

Every now and then the dedicated worker pauses and asks herself, “Why am I working like this?” Sometimes late at night as he leaves the office, the business man asks himself. “Who am I working for?”

There is more than one answer to these questions. Money, house payments, children’s education, retirement, holiday, alimony, the “cause”, promotion, status, no other choice, a slave driver, a dysfunctional organisation…

My mother (the traditional housewife) used to say that she was working for love – meaning she didn’t get any other pay. Although she was also describing her motivation. Of course some workers work for money as well as love. That is they are looking for payment in terms of love. Or at least approval. Well, let’s be honest – acclaim, status.

So some suffer from what one writer called status anxiety: the worry that we will not have sufficient status or respect among circles we desire to be part of to feel comfortable and happy. Because high status, ie high social approval, does give a certain kind of happiness.

So work (or other pursuits for that matter) can be a means not to money or wealth as ends in themselves, but to a higher goal of approval by our chosen jury. In some cases this festers into what CS Lewis referred to in a famous essay as the desire to enter the Inner Circle. The difficulty with the Inner Circle is that it exists to keep people out. It only has value if most other people are not in it. Some Inner Circles have very clear and stated rules. Others are much more informal and subtle. But once a person attains to it, its true value becomes apparent – it has no value except to exclude others.

Gaining status helps our sense of identity. In the Inner Circle the identity is essentially negative, but at least we are the ones who decide. The desire for status gives the power to others. And it forces us to conform to what our chosen public thinks is valuable. We can choose our public to some extent, but our choice is limited by what we have to offer them. And our select group is also influenced by the wider opinion of what counts as valuable in the world at large.

It can be quite difficult for Christians. We have to decide which love we are desiring. As John put it: the world’s love, or the Father’s love.

Dale

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