Work – ElPropósito5 min de lectura

The effort that pleases

"The time has come to work in earnest, to fill every moment of the day, to bear, gladly and joyfully, the burden of the day and the heat." Friends of God, no. 52. I read this line in a short biography of Saint Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, and it moved me deeply for two reasons. First, it gives a very explicit definition of what work means. Second, it carries an important implicit idea: the sanctification of work, another great part of Christian life according to Saint Josemaría. Another beautiful passage from the same book says: "Time is a treasure that melts away. It escapes us, slipping through our fingers like water through the rocks on the heights. Yesterday has gone and today is going. Tomorrow will soon be another yesterday. A lifetime is very short." What strikes me about these two passages is the metaphor of time flowing like water through our hands, because that is exactly how time passes. Just as we can waste the water slipping through our hands, we can waste time or make the most of it, ride the wave or simply watch the show. Were we born to be spectators? To be part of the show? To watch time go by, or to make the most of it? The final question, then, is how do we make the most of our time? How can we feel we are truly doing what is in our hands to do? Part of the answer is having a firm purpose. I will share the other part later in this post.

Work becomes a burden when there is no firm purpose for why we do it. Put more positively, work is a blessing when the purpose is firm. That does not mean there will be no burden. In fact, I think there is much more of it, but it is bearable, in the sense that the heavier the load, the happier we feel. That may sound a bit paradoxical, yet I firmly believe the load arrives as a reward for being on the path of our life purpose. When we do what truly gives our life meaning, we are capable of creating and doing unimaginable things. That is exactly where the best ideas and the best results are found, and even when the result falls short, it will never count as a failure. It will always be a lesson. I have always believed the best way for death to find me is working, and working with passion, courage and meaning, three words in the statement that defines my life purpose.

For a Christian, work becomes an opportunity to sanctify it, to sanctify one’s life and, through that, to find happiness. Approaching work as a path to holiness has a lot to do with the time we devote to it and everything that happens during that time. It is easy to see that we work more than eight hours a day and a good number of hours every week, month and year, so odds are high that we spend more time working than with our families. That should lead us to reflect on how we use our working time to go beyond what we expect to get in return for our effort. Engineering tells us that work equals force times displacement, two vital components for achieving any result. If we do not move, there is no work. Without effort, there is no work. It is precisely in effort that we feel discomfort or comfort, and in movement that we feel exhaustion or the energy to keep going. The work of serving without expecting anything in return may be the one that teaches us most. It is worth looking at how many people have lived a life devoted to service and then thinking, "He was a true saint."

The work I enjoy most is the work that brings me closer to living my life purpose of being the best father, husband and friend. Sometimes, when I have to push a little harder and go the extra mile, that is exactly when I try to remember that the first thing I want to achieve is just that: to be the best father, the best husband, the best friend. I am not after a monetary reward, though it may come as a byproduct. I am not after recognition, and I am not out to admire myself. All the effort I can put into something serves something bigger, something I feel God sent me to earth for. The more I work in line with my life purpose, the more I feel I reflect the values I believe define me, and the more I teach my children the importance of being a good professional. We can all live a life guided by purpose. All it takes is deciding to find out what our purpose on earth is. Any company can work, and give work to many people, in line with a purpose. All it takes is the will to ask the key question: why did we create this organization? Why does this team exist? These may sound like philosophical or rhetorical questions, yet the moment we can put that statement in writing, we open the door to working with purpose.

Great work that pleases is work done with a unique, special effort, an effort only each individual can give to what they do, one that belongs to our own responsibility and our own existence and to no one else’s.

Warm regards and all the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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