One of the most misunderstood words in existence is “happiness.” Not far behind that is the word “work.”

Most of us, young or old, define work as something you do in exchange for money. This is only partly true. Because so many of us dislike or merely tolerate our jobs, we view work as a “necessary evil” that we look forward to escaping as soon as possible in order to enjoy things that are fun. Fun things might be passive, like binging the latest Netflix hit or scrolling through videos of squirrels and cats, but they can also be demanding – like oil painting or baking macarons. In other words, fun can be work. In fact, the most enjoyable things in life are work.

But, didn’t we just say that work is the thing we do for money? Here is the root of the confusion. Money may be a necessary evil, but work is an inherent good, and we’ve mistakenly fused the two. While it’s wonderful to earn money for work that you love, none of us needs money – or any other outside reward – to justify hard work at something worth doing. This may be one of the most overlooked truths in existence, and yet it’s within reach for all of us.

With a little bit of work, that is.

We can all do work we love, even if we’re not paid for it

In his book Life Work, the poet and essayist Donald Hall shares the story of his 25^th high school reunion. When his classmates ask him what he does for a living, he tells them that he left his enjoyable teaching position at the University of Michigan to stay home, at his desk, writing all day. “What self-discipline!” his classmates tell him.

To which Hall remarks:

In vain did I protest. For me, I told them, it required no discipline to spend my days writing poems and making books. If I loved chocolate to distraction, I said, would you call me self-disciplined for eating a pound of Hershey’s Kisses before breakfast? ¹

Of course, there is something a little whimsical about the comparison. Eating Hershey’s kisses requires very little brainpower, and writing books requires a lot. But Hall isn’t aiming for a perfect analogy – he is using the example of chocolate to convey just how much he loves the work of writing. He loves writing so much, he later admits, that when he randomly wakes up at 3 AM, he would rather go to work than go back to bed.

To anyone who’s had a soul-sucking job that required hours of video games or TV just to “recover,” Hall’s description might sound romantic. Unfair. Out of reach. Notable thinkers from Karl Marx to William Morris, G.K. Chesterton, and beyond have pointed out the degrading and non-negotiable conditions of paid work for too many. Perhaps the biggest obstacle is the ever-present worry of having enough money, and of our time creating art or doing whatever our heart’s work is being at odds with our time working to make money.

This is not an easy problem to solve, and it may never be solved at a societal level. But I wonder if many of us have it backwards: the key to happiness in life is not being given a job that you love, but finding work that you love doing, which may lead to a “job” one day, or may instead fill your life and your hours outside of your job with depth and richness that watching TV or scrolling through your phone never could.

One of my favorite examples of this is Joe Kramer. Joe, one of several case studies from psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book Flow, works as a welder for railroad cars. He’s mastered the ins and outs of his job, not because he’s a workaholic or seeks a promotion, but because he enjoys the sheer challenge of honing his skills. When Joe comes home at night, he continues to work – not as a welder, but by installing yard art and light fixtures for his underground sprinkler system. He finds joy in creating things and solving problems, including when he’s off the clock. ²

Even Donald Hall, I suspect, would write poems and essays even if he weren’t able to support himself from it. The fact that he became a financially self-supported writer points to his obsession with the craft, something I’m sure he went into despite the odds of making money from it.

Being paid for work we sincerely love doing is wonderful, but optional. What is not optional, in my opinion, is finding time in our lives for work that we love and throwing ourselves into it for its own sake.

The Over-Justification Effect

While earning a living at what we love is an ideal most of us wish to attain, extrinsic motivation (like money) can also thwart even the most passionate of artists, creators, writers, designers, and yard art mechanics.

In a famous 1973 study, children who were given a reward for creative work, such as drawing pictures, were subsequently less interested in creative activities afterward. By contrast, the children who weren’t compensated continued to enjoy picture-drawing just as much. This finding has since been dubbed “the Over-Justification Effect,” with the hypothesis being that individuals who focus on extrinsic rewards are at risk of losing their spark, compared to those who pursue something for the intrinsic value it brings – a sense of accomplishment, fulfillment, of working with one’s hands, even. ³

Wendell Berry, a poet and farmer of many decades, describes the backbreaking work of harvesting tobacco as something enjoyable, even sublime, and laments the human tendency to avoid “drudgery” and to not love work for its own sake:

Ultimately, in the argument about work and how it should be done, one has only one’s pleasure to offer. It is possible, as I have learned again and again, to be in one’s place, in such company, wild or domestic, and with such pleasure, that one cannot think of another place that one would prefer to be—or of another place at all. One does not miss or regret the past, or fear or long for the future. Being there is simply all, and is enough. Such times give one the chief standard and the chief reason for one’s work. ⁴

Like Joe Kramer, Berry understands that work is at its most enjoyable when it’s hard. This applies just as much to writing and thinking as it does to farming and landscaping; that’s the beauty of work. The Lebanese-American poet Khalil Gibran wrote, “Work is love made visible.” ⁵I can’t think of a greater testament to our love for something than the willingness to spend hours and years laboring in it, and allowing it to shape and change us as individuals in the process of doing so.

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1. Hall, D. (2003). Life work. Beacon Press.
2. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2008). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1st ed.). Harper Perennial Modern Classics.
3. Lepper, M. R., Greene, D., & Nisbett, R. E. (1973). Undermining children’s intrinsic interest with extrinsic reward: A test of the “overjustification” hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 28(1), 129–137. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0035519
4. From his 1988 essay, “Economy and Pleasure.”
5. From The Prophet.