Ashleigh

“Art is where what we survive survives.”
― John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

“How they treat you is about who they are, not who you are.”
― Nedra Glover Tawwab, Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself

“We've simply become too attached to work," I explained. "We've become too addicted to working and we need to balance our lives with a little idle activity like sitting on porches or chatting with neighbors."

"I would HATE that!" she answered with a moo of disgust. "I LOVE to work! I can't stand just sitting around. Work makes me happy."

This woman, by the way, is one of the most grounded, cheerful, and talented people I know. She's also not an outlier. I've had this conversation many times over the past few years with both friends and strangers and I often get some version of, "but I love to work!" in response.

The question for me wasn't whether people enjoyed their work but whether they needed it. That was the question that drove my research. The question I asked hundreds of people around the country and the essential question of this book:

Is work necessary?

A lot of people will disagree with my next statement to the point of anger and outrage: Humans don't need to work in order to be happy.

At this point, in our historical timeline, that claim is almost subversive. The assumption that work is at the core of what it means to lead a useful life underlies so much of our morality that it may feel I'm questioning our need to breathe or eat or sleep. But as I examined the body of research of what we know is good for all humans, what is necessary for all humans, I noticed a gaping hole where work was supposed to be.

This lead me to ask some pointed questions about why most of us feel we can't be fully human unless we're working.

Please note that by "work" I don't mean the activities we engage in to secure our survival: finding food, water, or shelter. I mean the labor we do to secure everything else beyond survival or to contribute productively to the broader society - the things we do in exchange for pay.”
― Celeste Headlee, Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving

“How long until the ghosts catch up to me? Until they crowd around me, shouting away anything wonderful in my world. Until they grab my ankles and attempt to drag me underground, back into the darkness.”
― Carrot Quinn, The Sunset Route: Freight Trains, Forgiveness, and Freedom on the Rails in the American West