It’s Labor day again. Beach trips, barbecues, the whole end of summer ritual.
It began as a celebration of the American worker in the 19th Century by the Trades Union movement to tip a hat to the people who actually built things with their hands (e.g. factory workers, farm hands, the people who formed the backbone of the economy). Now it’s mostly about getting Monday off.
It’s a good moment to recognize the people who make our economic engine possible, but maybe we’re missing something. A century-plus later, we’re no longer really celebrating “labor” and the work itself in a reverential way.
Harvard professor and happiness expert, Arthur Brooks, recently listed what actually makes people happy. It’s a short list, and politics, dating apps, and AI aren’t on it.
Love. Faith in something bigger. Friends. And the one that caught our attention. The feeling that one’s work (our deeds) actually has a positive and meaningful impact on the world.
The last one is interesting. Not work in a transactional sense, climbing ladders or collecting titles. But work that feels like it matters. The carpenter who sees the house go up. The designer who solves the thing that’s been driving everyone crazy for months. The teacher who watches the lightbulb moment finally happen.
It’s so easy to get caught up in career optimization and growth that we forget the simple things: good work, done well, for reasons that matter.
Tomorrow, when we’re all back on the job, we have the opportunity to ask ourselves what are we actually building here? Not what’s on the LinkedIn profile or business card, but what we’re really adding to the world.
Our happiness is already in our hands. As Mark Twain said, “Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions.” The difference is how we choose to see it.
