Sigmund Freud said that “love and work” are the cornerstones of our humanity. I doubt that many people would disagree with Freud on the first. After all, who would turn down the opportunity to love and to be loved? Whether it is the love of your family, your partner, of your child, love is inarguably an essential part of a happy life.

I suspect that more people would have reservations about Freud’s second cornerstone: work. After all, work is, well … work; it’s effort, labor, toil. Who wants to do that? Wouldn’t you rather, play, go out to recess, go fishing, or do just about anything but work?

To be fair to Freud, he was not talking about toil when he placed work as a cornerstone for humanity. He was talking about labor that people found meaningful. Indeed he wasn’t even talking about work for which you receive remuneration but our labors in this world that give us something to do and which connect us with a broader community—a mother caring for a child at home is just as much engaging in meaningful work as (and perhaps more so than) the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Nor does the work have to be philanthropic to be meaningful. A craftsman who takes pride in his craft is just as much involved in meaningful work as someone who works for a nonprofit taking care of the needs of others. For Freud and for those who followed in his footsteps, work was a way to be part of a community. Work fulfills a need to be relevant in our social world, not just a way to keep from being idle or to make money.

We Americans are terribly conflicted about our work. There isn’t a day that goes by when someone doesn’t complain to me about their job. And given the popularity of the Dilbert comic strip, you’d think that working at a job is the most mind-numbing or soul-sucking thing that anyone could possibly do. But then again, losing the opportunity to work is right up there with getting divorced as a stressful, life-changing event. No one wants to be unemployed. With the present high unemployment rate, the current political scene is about as angry as it can get. It seems we hate and love our jobs.

Perhaps Freud’s thoughts on work explain why so many Americans are conflicted about their jobs. How much of our jobs has just become about making a buck? Are our labors only about keeping the wolf from the door or staying off the unemployment line? Has capitalism’s obsession with the bottom line robbed us of a sense of being a meaningful part of the social fabric? If so, then there is little wonder why so many people can’t wait for a holiday, such as Labor Day, and the chance to escape from their jobs.

In 1894 when it was enacted, Labor Day was offered as a way to reconcile the tensions between the burgeoning labor movement, business, and government. Working conditions in the nineteenth century led to the formation of unions, and these workers fought fiercely with businesses for better wages and working conditions. In the intervening years, much of the steam has been taken out of the labor movement, and so today, Labor Day is seen as the official end of summer holiday — one last opportunity to hit the pool — with little connection to working men and women or the labor conflicts that originally spawned the holiday. To be fair, the causes for which the early labor movement fought have mostly been achieved — legislation has eliminated many of the unsafe and unfair labor practices that the early unions fought to change.

But even now, when the working conditions and pay are so much better than they once were, people are still dissatisfied with their jobs. Perhaps Sigmund was right. Today, working isn’t about the toiling or money, it’s about being a meaningful participant in our world. So this Monday when we are hitting the pool that one last time, we might reflect not so much on our jobs but about the whole of what we do that makes us meaningful participants in our social world.

Readers can e-mail the author at: jm.horner@yahoo.com

The donations canister at the Bear Creek Dog Park, off South 21st Street, now has a better lock and is more theft-proof. Photo by El Paso County