“Arbeit und Liebe”—-Work and Love this was what Freud said life was all about. We have already covered Love in this book so it is time we look at work. Some futurists have predicted that with the advances in technology related to Artificial Intelligence that we homo sapiens may soon find meaningful work scarce. Realizing how far we are from even understanding the variables at play in our own thinking process I doubt that anyone reading this book will come face to face with a robot that thinks, feels, acts, and can self-actualize the way you can(or will) .
The issues around work that we presently face and in all likelihood will continue to face revolve around what work means to us and how satisfying are our working conditions. Maslow set a high standard for the optimal job when he stated the following “Ideally, one’s vocation is an expression of the self: It is a way of finding one’s identity, one’s real self. The luckiest person in the world is one who gets paid for doing what he loves: who is fascinated by something and finds that he or she can make a living by it.”, While achieving this goal may be difficult for many it is nonetheless a reasonable target for everyone .
Maslow believed that to have a healthy and happy life it was essential that you pay attention to your innate capacities and potentialities and endeavor to fulfill them as fully as possible. While some may be fortunate enough to recognize and engage in their innate calling on the first try others may need to be alert and aware enough to find it in a second or third job. Our greater longevity and improved health gives us greater opportunities to do what is necessary to be true to our selves. As Maslow stated:
“What you are fitted for—that is your destiny, which you must accept & give yourself to wholly, & train yourself for in the best way possible. All this then reads at the highest level: which of the B-Values (which, of course, are your ultimate destiny) are you going to specialize in? because you detect in yourself specialized capacities or possibilities or because some B-value tasks “call for” you more strongly; i.e., they need you, so you respond.” (pg. 469, Journal 6, 1964-1965
He expanded on this theme by speaking about the way the healthiest people in the world–, the self-actualizers look at work :
“Self-actualizing people are without one single exception, involved in a cause outside their own skin, in something outside of themselves. They are devoted, working at something, something which is very precious to them—some calling or vocation in the old sense, the priestly sense. They are working at something which fate has called them to somehow and which they work at when they love, so that the work-joy dichotomy in them appears.” (pg. 42)—Farther 2 .
