Just enough work
I wish you plenty, but not too much.
Within minutes (or seconds) of conversation among friends and family, the subject will likely turn to work. How’s work? What’s going on at work? Did you apply for that job? Or, for those of us of a certain vintage, When will you stop working? Where I’m from, work is so often equated to personal value that it’s hard to distinguish who you are from what you do. But of course the two are not the same, even if work consumes most of our living hours.
I once had a mentor who dismissed my college-age handwringing about the value of any work at all. Who are we but our work in this world? she asked me. Now, as in most matters except literature, I’m only a half-hearted zealot on the issue. We are all sorts of things besides our force x distance. The time we spend on this earth is part legacy, part joy. We give and we take. We experience and we endeavor.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about a whole different thing when it comes to work, which is the distinct pleasure of having a pleasant amount of it. To have just enough on our plate today, and a little something waiting for us tomorrow—I find this the very best feeling. I like to use the skills I was made to offer, to pay my toll in exchange for the privilege of enjoying this life, as I am doing right now. I produce this Substack with Oma not for the giant pile of dough that we make from it (which is none dough), but because we have fun playing with this interesting and useful publishing tool. The world can be a difficult place for writers, and here is a blessed instrument that designs, distributes, and posts for us! Thanks, @Substack.
Perhaps this makes me deeply unimaginative, but I find a few hours of labor very satisfying (often more so than a few hours of doing nothing at all). Equally satisfying is setting those labors aside when I’m weary, so I can do something else. Be it cooking, or Substacking, or shopping for the perfect dark gray turtleneck sweater (the quest never ends), or playing Wingspan. You have your own list.
I realize this point, this chill mid-life, is a very privileged place to be. I’m at last set enough to afford putting away my work when I am over it. I am grateful to have come to a work-rest balance, and I know the kid in me, who was detasseling corn at age 13, is grateful, too.
But the joy of focus, of service, of putting my energies into the stream of useful things: I do like it. Just enough of it. A short to-do list, well-accomplished, is what I aim for now. And now that I’m here, in this particular place of work and retrospect, all the labor that came before it makes more sense to me. This is one of the many gifts of age.
Happy almost-weekend. I wish you a break from your work, and just enough action and inaction, to feel satisfied.
I love this idea of “just enough” (not to be confused with barely enough, which is struggle). In so many ways, that state feels like it has the highest potential for satisfaction.
Amen, from someone who has an overabundance of work.