I wish I’d had a teacher who’d told me about Virginia Valian’s essay “Learning to work.” I think eighth grade might have been a good time.
A lot of people have a problem with work. Valian, a psychologist, did. She was the kind of student who didn’t study and waited until the last minute to write papers. When she reached graduate school, there was no longer any way to avoid the problem. Her attitudes about work were preventing her from writing a thesis.
She found a way to get started — working 15 minutes a day on her project. A lot of us have resentments about having to work, and 15 minutes was all she could face. But as she cultivated a daily habit of writing — her work — she found she enjoyed it. She was pursuing an interest and learning. She was learning something about her field, and she was learning about herself.
Valian got through her thesis. But, since her field is psychology, she was interested in the question of why so many of us have problems with work.
She began to see work in the context of a happy life.
For her, happiness meant developing her own talents and interests. It also meant developing one talent deeply. That was her work.
Happiness also meant developing relationships with others, including an intense relationship with her partner, other relationships with friends and still others involving politics.
Happiness involves balance. A healthy relationship with work raises the question of time: what’s a reasonable amount?
Now, I think that the right amount of time is whatever amount leaves room for the other important activities in my life and still allows me to make intellectual progress. There is no fixed right amount.
I found the essay fascinating, although I don’t know enough about psychology to understand all of it. The more practical parts seem right to me.
Since retiring, I’ve continued to pursue my own interests. Some are deep enough to involve work: research, thinking, writing.
It’s natural to want to pursue those interests — to want to work on them. And it’s good to think about how you’re going to fit that work into your life.
I could have used a lesson around eighth grade and a refresher before retirement.
• Source: Virginia Valian, “Learning to work,” in S. Ruddick & P. Daniels (eds.), Working it out: 23 women writers, artists, scientists, and scholars talk about their lives and work; New York: Pantheon Books, 1977, pp. 162-178. The quote is on p. 177. Valian’s essay is available here:
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