“What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word work?”

For me, when I hear the term "work," I think of fulfillment. Work is satisfying. Because of the curse of sin, it can sometimes be stressful, but most of the time it is not- at least for me.

For me it depends on the day. Words like struggle, purpose, and tired come to mind. Often, blessed is in the short list.

There’s a long list of things that feel one way, but are another.

Dieting, or at least eating healthy, for example.

So while what comes to mind in word association is important to understand, the point of the article (and its one I've thought about writing for SI) is that work is a blessing.

The desire to avoid working nearly universal. People buy lottery tickets for the dream of leaving work behind. I always tell people that they shouldn’t gamble because in the worst case scenario they might win.

Income

I wonder how much of a difference there is between the fulfillment of physical work and a desk job. When I study and prepare sermons, I am doing a lot of office work to get there, but there is definitely fulfillment of having studied the word of God and looking forward to sharing that study.

When I run my excavator or skid steer and move a bunch of dirt and change a landscape to satisfy my customer, there is definitely fulfillment to that. That work is especially fulfilling because I can "see" the results. When my boys and I shingled the roof a few days ago, I was tired, but also fulfilled because we could see what we did and know the improvements we had made. Further my wife could look at the roof and like the new shingles. When a friend told me he loved the new color and how much better they looked than the old one that too gave fulfillment.

On the other hand, when I sit in the office and keep track of records for taxes, I can see numbers, but I cannot see a new roof. I do not feel the same level of fulfillment. That could just be me though, but I wonder if when we live in a society that has a lot less physical and visually tangible work, if some of the fulfilment is lost.

I think of Jacob building his sheep herd and being able to look out and see those speckled animals and having some satisfaction for his labor, vs the modern day Jacob who simply sees the stack of papers on his disk getting smaller and then seeing a new stack added.

JD, it's not just you. I know that much of my desk work has added value to people, but it still much easier to see and feel the results of physical work, even housecleaning.

And the little space guy who gets sent out to repair his ship just before getting captured to set up the game sequence. He mutters, “woik, woik, woik, that’s all I ever do around here” just before the creepy alien captures him and you are sent off to rescue him solving math problems.

It’s been more than twenty years since my kids were playing with the game, and that line has become an in house joke every time we are assigned a menial task by the boss