Flourishing In Professional Work

To find in one's professional work pleasure, personal fulfillment, and individualistic expression is simplified and probable when the life obstacles of typical corporate America are removed.  For many, work is not something to be eagerly anticipated except in that it is a source of income.  A job otherwise brings frustration, anxiety, boredom, or a combination of all of these for a great number of people according to them.  In such cases, there is no sense of freedom or moral or personal fulfillment tied to their career because jobs are banal or despised intrusions on free time, emotional peace, relationships, or a focus on things of inherently greater substance, the only core motivating factor being the desire to have enough money to survive.

There are, however, ways to make jobs more appealing and conducive to existential flourishing.  It is easier to enjoy professional work as an expression of talent or individuality if one is not paid too little to live comfortably on and not treated slanderously, hypocritically, or otherwise abusively.  In fact, when these conditions are met and one's work allows one to weather the trials of life without having to constantly worry about something like single pay period dictating whether one can continue to live in an apartment/house, it might be outright easy to delight in one's job and even be grateful for the chance to earn money by performing a role well.  Deep pleasure in expressing personhood through work and a deep recognition of the lesser importance of work compared to certain other aspects of reality can both be savored all at once.

Likewise, enriching the lives of clients and fellow workers or managers is much more likely to be desired or at a minimum pursued by a worker who is not barely keeping their head above the waters of poverty, starvation, or exploitation.  Treating others in a way that does not dehumanize them might be morally obligatory and thus no one would be without an excuse for failing to do so, but it is nonetheless easier for the typical person to want to treat others as their human rights require when they are financially secure enough to not worry about whether they will lose their place of residence any week.  There is no excuse for irrationality and selfishness and any sort of mistreatment of others on the part of oppressed workers, of course.  The typical person will just have an easier time wanting to not pursue these ends when they are financially secure.

Anyone can grasp logical truths regardless of how hungry or busy or bored they are, and they already universally rely on them as it is because such truths are objective, self-verifying, and inescapable, so no one can pretend like either the rich or the poor or those occupied with their careers somehow have more important things to attend to than discovering or comprehending the deep philosophical truths about reason, epistemology, morality, and so on.  It is also possible for anyone to find subjective fulfillment in either worthless or significant things even if they have little to no free time or financial security.  This just becomes progressively less likely when general life is expected to revolve around work instead of the other way around.

It is simultaneously true that money and material security are objectively trivial compared to things of greater philosophical centrality, like the laws of logic and absolute certainty and justice, and true that money or at least some sort of material prosperity (even if only that there are enough natural resources for a wanderer or lone person to use) is necessary to have a comfortable life, a life that for some people makes it easier for them to persistently and eagerly look to the things of greater weight than mere survival.  Both are true at once and both can be fully understood at once, despite the popular philosophical approach being that of ignoring some truths about money in favor of others.  Professional work does not have to be anywhere near the most important part of reality to have a large amount of power to shape a person's life beyond work.