Our culture’s narrative around work is something like this: Work is the suffering we must endure to get to life. Work gives us money, which enables more life. Since life is always preferable to work, we should strive to minimize work while ensuring sufficient money.
This is basically a judgment around how to spend one’s time. But time is amoral: It doesn’t care if you spend it watching Netflix, drinking wine with friends, creating social media content, programming software, laying bricks or painting facades.
Time just passes, each second is one you’re closer to death. Then why should what we label as ‘working’ be worse than binging Netflix?
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There’s a Koan in Zen Buddhism:
“Before Enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment chop wood, carry water”.
Zen Koan
It seems paradoxical. Before and after enlightenment, you do the same thing. So what gives? We start by importing cultural assumptions. Chopping wood and carrying water means boredom, drudgery, work. When we learn what we must, judgment ceases. Or, more precisely, we can view the judgment as yet another fleeting experience and carry on chopping wood, carrying water. The experience is best described as peace, happiness, equanimity. Zen.
How often do we procrastinate on tasks because we judge them as undesirable? How many friendships withered because of one uncomfortable conversation you didn’t have? How much stress do is caused because we prefer the permanent discomfort of not doing something to the temporary discomfort of doing it?
It’s just chopping wood, carrying water—the tasks life has put in front of you.
We don’t waste our time when we work. We waste our time when we judge work as undesirable.