Work. The story we've told ourselves throughout history.

“I have to work.” “I’m too busy.” “All I do is work.” I heard it a lot as a child. I’ve said it to my own child. Now, as a yoga teacher I hear it even more. Most of the time, the inflection is distinct. To assure sacrifice or superiority, the “I” gets more pronounced.

While it is no secret that income is a necessity for all of us, it has been ingrained in our heads that the more “work” is hard, grueling and sweat inducing the better. In a January 2013 article in The Guardian, Jeremy Seabrook explores the language behind the word.

The etymology of all the words for "work" in European languages suggests work as coercion, certainly not for the prosperity of the worker, but as a fulfilment of human destiny. Ecclesiastes 3:22 declares: "There is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion." Words indicating labour in most European languages originate in an imagery of compulsion, torment, affliction and persecution. The French word travail (and Spanish trabajo), like its English equivalent, are derived from the Latin trepaliare – to torture, to inflict suffering or agony. The word peine, meaning penalty or punishment, also is used to signify arduous labour, something accomplished with great effort. The German Arbeit suggests effort, hardship and suffering; it is cognate with the Slavonic rabota (from which English derives "robot"), a word meaning corvee, forced or serf labour. In romance languages, words from the Latin laborare have come to mean ploughing or tilling the earth, although in Italian, lavoro also means work in general. The Latin meaning was anything accomplished with difficulty and struggle.

However, this wasn’t always the case according to Roger B. Hill, Ph.D. in his web page entitled “History of Work Ethic”. He explores times before the Protestant Reformation, where work had an idyllic quality until sin became the ultimate disrupter. Judeo-Christian work ethics have ruled the Western world ever since.

It's gotten to the point where work is the ultimate rebuttal against anyone else’s needs. The work we have defined for ourselves can stand high above everything. It can make us forget our mates, ignore our children, and detach from our friends. Yes, work can be fun and fulfilling. It’s nice to create, serve, or solve something. It feels great to work together. There is nothing like cooperation and having strong teams to get a task accomplished faster. I’m talking about when work is used to hide, cover a pain, fill a void, or excuse us from relating with others. Or when work becomes penance to pay for the debt we’ve accrued because we have to keep earning to buy more and more “things” that promise to give us the happiness we can’t get on our own. Perhaps, that is the time to re-evaluate the externalized version of it, and begin to do our inner work.

Namaste

Rhonda Geraci