We can all remember it. The thing that started as a rumour spreading through the city of Wuhan in China. This rumour of a virus, SARS-CoV-2 as it was dubbed early on, began to cause some panic among the people of Wuhan when the first large cluster was recorded in December 2019. The events that followed are some of the most unforgettable events of our time. SARS-CoV-2 would later be known as COVID 19.
In the recent few years, our world as a whole has gone through several events that have redefined what work means and should mean to us. From the global financial crisis to the more recent COVID 19 pandemic, it’s safe to say that we have been forced to be resilient in our quest to survive.
It was in the early phases of the COVID pandemic that I and many other people around the globe began to notice a shift in the way people approached work. A shift that was less voluntary than we would have hoped but necessary regardless. For the first time ever, the whole world had to become acquainted with the reality of remote work and everything that it came with. This change in the way we worked didn’t come easy but it did come with few sustainable alternatives. Choice was limited.
Work is an area of the adult life that is filled with different perspectives and approaches. We all have our own disposition towards work. Love it or hate it, it remains part of our way of life; something we can’t escape. Therefore, if there is a right disposition towards it, it is worth exploring.
I’ll use the term work in this post to include anything that is done to the productive benefit of society as a whole.
As a person who generally loves being busy and finds his fulfilment in being productive for a good cause, understanding the concept of work is rather easy for me. It makes sense that for us to have something we ought to put in the effort to be worthy of receiving it. For results to manifest we must first digest the three-course meal that is effort, consistency and perseverance. It is, as some might say, the natural law of the land.
As you can probably imagine and relate, the recent pandemic was a weird time where work and productivity are concerned. Mostly because COVID 19, while attacking our immune systems, also attacked the most essential element of ideal working conditions, proximity. We couldn’t be near each other! And while an argument can be made for the fact that one can still get some work done on his or her own, I believe we can all agree that collaborative work should be the standard if we are to achieve anything good as a society. With a war waged against our ability to be near each other, there was an inevitable sub-pandemic of temporal productivity paralysis that followed, and it wasn’t cute at all.
In the recent few months, I have been experiencing the aftereffects of not being able to relate to society normally for a long time. Almost like someone fired a gun at my work ethic and the bullet hit me but left me with a non-fatal injury. And even though I thought I got the bullet out, what I discovered is that there remained some fragments that went by unnoticed the first time around, further contributing to the discomfort that I have been feeling.
It being the first time that all of us experienced something as huge as COVID, it is normal that most of us didn’t know how to respond at first. Especially as it relates to our school, work, hobbies etc. Something that we didn’t realise early on that we only came to realise later is that we had limited access to the world’s most valuable resource, people. This resource, as we have come to realise is a huge part of our motivation to be productive. So, I guess it shouldn’t have been surprising that our work was affected. In hindsight, I’m sure we would have all approached things differently.
I commend the people that realised the need for proximity with people early. Even more so, the people that still found a way to stay connected despite the limiting conditions. While I have no evidence to support it at this time, I have a strong feeling that these people had it better off than most. They found a solution to the core issue, and they most likely found a way to still get a good amount of work done.
Why is work important?
It is clear that work is a core element in the contribution of the betterment of society and the world. What makes a city, nation, or group of nations great is individuals that make it a habit to consistently do their part. Without this, nothing good can become of society. It is also worth noting that humans were not created to just watch life pass by. The same way Adam in the garden of Eden was assigned the responsibility of tilling the land is the same way we are assigned with the responsibility to do our part for the greater good of the world.
Simply put, the world cannot function without work. So, to rob the world of your work would be to rob humanity of a greater level of functionality.
When does it count most?
When does it matter most for us to work? The short answer is whenever there is a need. You’ll come to realise that the need for people to work is more constant than not. Allow me to add also, that it matters more than ever in crisis. As was seen in the recent pandemic, there was a huge need for people who could still do the work necessary to make our world function. A need that was met by some very courageous people.
It is also worth stating that in order for us to be effective workers in crisis, we need to develop the attitude and lifestyle that effective work thrives off of. We must think of work like a muscle that has to be trained. The more we train, the better positioned we are to defend ourselves, our people, and our society in crisis.
Conclusion
I believe that if we are to take anything from the recent pandemic that we faced we should look at it as a test run. An opportunity to stand in the defensive corner of our world against future crises. While we hope for there to be no such future crises, history has shown that that is a fairy tale ideal. We ought to position ourselves in a way that we realise the implications that our ability to stay productive and working has on the world. Because whether we accept it or not, the world is counting on us to do our part for the glory of our Lord and the benefit of other like us.
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