For most of human history, the notion of job satisfaction would have seemed like a puzzling concept. Life was short and difficult. Just finding a way to survive and produce a family was a big deal. You grew your own food or hunted what you ate. The idea of a job — doing work for someone else in exchange for pay — would have seemed alien.
Today, though, survival is a given. Some of us might struggle financially — especially in an economic downturn such as this one — but we’re not worrying about starving to death. We have such a standard of living in this country that even someone who’s poor today would have been wealthy by historical standards. Our middle class families have things beyond comprehension to those in most of human history.
We’ve created a complicated economy that’s capable of delivering all this, and it’s a marvel. But there’s a dark side — and I’m wondering whether it has to be this way or if it’s an indication that most people are settling for being cogs in machines instead of making positive choices about what to do with their lives.
A new Gallup survey says that 70 percent of Americans are basically bored with or hate their jobs. The study says most people are “checked out” at their jobs or are “actively disengaged” from what they’re supposed to be doing. If this is true — and it fits my anecdotal observations — how did we manage to get here? And how can it change?
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