And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. >> [APPLAUSE] >> Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. This is an excerpt from President John F. Kennedy's famous inaugural address in January of 1961, but what does it have to do with work? Now, we've looked at a lot of different reasons for working, pay, fulfillment, identity, caring for a household. These, of course, are very different reasons for working, they contain very different rewards from working, but notice they're all fairly personal. I'm looking for pay for myself, I'm searching for answers for my own identity, I'm looking at care for my own immediate family. Some people might be looking to serve broader goals. That is, they might be motivated to work to serve others, not simply themselves, or their own immediate family members. Like these two volunteers in the devastating earthquake in Nepal in April of 2015. Now for most of human history, labor is seen as a common resource to help sustain a community. It hasn't been seen as a private affair, focused on one's immediate household or one's own personal goals. Now, in some cultures, work is still an important element of serving an extended family, rather than an immediate family. This is true, for example, in some East Asian cultures, where Confucianism is still strong today. The extended family is the primary unit in some First Nations communities, as well. Indeed, in some cases, Native Americans will send a sibling or a cousin to work for them when they're unable. This is a reflection of seeing work as an affair of an extended family rather than as an individual. Now, beyond serving the extended family, there are two broader ways in which work is seen as service to others. Serving the community, whether at a local level, a national level, or a global level, and serving God's kingdom. So first, serving the community, again whether locally or globally. Serving communities can take many forms. It can be unpaid volunteering in your neighborhood. It can be working in a low paid civic service program, locally or internationally. It can be military service for your country. Now those are all examples from non-traditional jobs. But you can also serve others through traditional work. Being a manager in a nonprofit, becoming a public servant working for a government agency, taking a sabbatical from an executive to be a teacher in a low income community. Or in some countries, especially as they are trying to industrialize, working hard in industry and elsewhere is promoted as a way to serve a country's goals, so working hard in regular jobs becomes a patriotic duty. So why do people serve others through their labor? Well, for some, it's rooted in humanitarian concerns which are based on ethical or religious principles. Others might want to build strong, vibrant communities because they think that it serves political or economic goals. Some people might want to repay a perceived debt to society. And there's also individual awards which can be derived from volunteering or serving others. There are intrinsic rewards. For example, maybe somebody enjoys the nature of the work. They get fulfillment from seeing other people helped. There's also extrinsic rewards that can be gained from serving others. You might improve your human capital. You might extend your social network. You might enhance your civic skills. So, all of this is to imply that volunteering is real work. Not only does it produce benefits for the volunteer and others, just like so-called real work, but it also requires effort and it is structured by the same factors that shape paid employment. For example, labor market opportunities, individual motivation, social norms, and gender. Also, maybe some of you have to manage volunteers. A lot of what we've discussed in this course applies to managing volunteers just as well as paid employees. How to structure their working conditions. How to motivate and engage volunteers. So we shouldn't dismiss volunteering as something outside of the realm of real work. Volunteering is real work. So next, turning to serving God's kingdom. Though the specific theology is different of course, elements of works as service can be found in diverse religious traditions. Roman Catholic, Protestant, Judaism, Islam, Hindu. Now, dating back to the first millennium of the Christian Church, work has been seen as a way to indirectly serve God's Kingdom, by preventing idleness, which was seen as leading to sin. Providing for one's family, and generating surpluses for charitable giving. Centuries later, Martin Luther and John Calvin changed this way of thinking so that we can serve God directly rather than indirectly through our work. Some people today even see work as co-creativity, working with God. This gives work a profound religious significance and creates a personal relationship between a worker and God. But it also means that we should care deeply about the conditions under which people are working. Some of this can get into theology debates, so let's instead hear instead from a real worker. My friend Bob Bruno interviewed a number of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish workers in working class communities in Chicago, exploring the relationship between their work and their faith. And I wanna read a passage to you where he interviewed a custodian who works in a school. I think that God puts us in different positions and different work to help people out. I think that it's a service. The work serves a purpose, someone, and a need. It's like being a missionary, anytime you can serve someone, or in my case, if you look at the school, I am doing this so that the kids can learn without having to worry about trash on the floor or sitting with vandalism on the wall, so, yes, it's godly work. Again, we can see the emphasis here on serving God through your own day to day work. What I called personal fulfillment in earlier videos, we call a sense of satisfaction and self-esteem, is often phrased as achieving a sense of inner joy when work is seen as serving God or a god. These characterizations are not limited to Western religions as illustrated by this passage from an ancient Hindu scripture. They all attain perfection when they find joy in their work. Hear how a man attains perfection and finds joy in his work. A man attains perfection when his work is worship of God, from whom all things come and who is in all. Notice again, the emphasis in this passage on finding joy in your work serving God. Achieving joy can also be characterized as being liberated from the cursed nature of work. Lastly, some also see work as a calling. Something that God summoned someone to do by providing special gifts or special talents. Now, in secular terms, this can be seen as occupational devotion. Where someone gets so many intrinsic rewards from their work, it no longer seems like work. People with high levels of devotion or who see their work as a calling, have a strong drive to serve a greater purpose and a very passion about their work. So thinking about work as service is therefore important both for a comprehensive understanding of work. As well as for being a better manager.
