Name Name	
Essay #4

Ideas on Work

       To explain why people work would be impossible. Reason for any activity is based upon individual justification. We have the ability to rationalize our actions any way we see fit. Answering the question “why people work” would truly fill volumes. So no… I cannot possibly elucidate why people work, simply because the answers are infinite. What I can reveal is why people should work. 
       A doctor, artist, geneticist, teacher, student, husband, father, and friend are all qualities encapsulated in one man named Kevin Strauss. Kevin’s trail is unlike any other I know. He started his post-high school education in pre-medicine. After graduation, he was destined for medical school, where most pre-medicine majors depart. His passion for art and painting guided him not to medical school, but to art school. After completing his art degree, Kevin then decided he was ready to become a doctor. He now works at “The Clinic for Special Children” as a pediatrician and geneticist. The clinic’s mission is to serve Amish and Mennonite families in their fight against genetic diseases caused by the small gene pool within their community. 
	I met Kevin one evening after babysitting his young children. Unique as his story was, it was the attitude and passion for his studies that captured my attention. I knew instantly that Kevin was someone I needed to know and understand.  He has stated to me many times, “I do feel a deep connection to what I do, and as I hope I have conveyed to you, it is this that ultimately sustains us.” His reason for working is the reasoning and purpose behind the work itself. Kevin does not wake up to the sound of his pager dreading the drive to his patient’s house. He awakens prepared to help that patient because he believes in the pursuit of knowledge upon which he has embarked.
	I do not mean to say that certain career choices are more meaningful than others. What I do imply is that our mission, while searching out our profession, should be to find that sustaining purpose that challenges our minds to new heights. Becoming the president of a financial institution can produce the same sense of meaning that a scientific researcher, like Kevin, feels after discovering a cure for disease. The purpose and meaning behind an individual’s work is justified in their own mind. Each morning, there are countless souls driving to jobs they hate. They rise out of bed only because they have no other choice. When economical sustenance becomes the only reason for work, we lose sight of any real meaning or achievement.  
       By learning Kevin Strauss’s story, my justifications for work are now clarified. Our career must act as dogma. I believe, as Kevin believes, that purpose must propel our lives. If we live without aspirations, we cannot gain fulfillment. The purpose I speak of is not like a simpleton’s drive for money. Capital gain is merely one of the many barriers in the way to true achievement. The “connections that sustain us” are the same bonds that catapulted Einstein’s theory of relativity. The “connections that sustain us” are the same ties that launched our dreams of space travel into reality. Life is just too short to aim any lower than the bounds set by our imagination.