The Importance of Work in Our Life

Abstract

What is work? And why do we work? Work has many meanings; in general work refers to human labour. The meaning of life is work. Sometimes work can be equated with life and being on the job. Aristotle was one of the most important thinkers in ancient philosophy. According to him, our work in life is the work of being human. In this chapter, I argue that this is true, our first work and our most important work in life is being human. Other works come later. We need work to live. Without working, can we continue our life? I do not think so. In general, today work means money, because work provides income. I want to ask whether work is a human need or not. According to Aristotle, work makes humans unique from animals. Many thinkers, such as Mandeville, claim that work is not the natural condition of human. On the contrary, they believe that indolence is the natural condition of the human. It can be claimed that people’s desires for money, fame, power etc. are the fundamental causes of why they work. I want to briefly mention Aristotle and Mandeville’s thoughts about work, and discuss the necessity of work in human life.