Good Work

Become capable of deep, meaningful work.

Economic realities along with supposedly work-enhancing or work-reducing technologies often strangle and maim good work, both in our workplace and at home. Turn to time-tested strategies for life-giving, soul-enhancing and relationship-deepening work.

Responding to Economic Pressures

Our economy especially rewards work that is removed from real needs and real life. You can make your profession more meaningful and find other enriching good work.

Reconnecting through Better Work

Often our work is shallow or even soul-numbing, and we feel disconnected from our bodies, the earth, and our community. Good work can reconnect you and build surprising new ties.

Rediscovering Your Inner Craftsman

We can’t find time or occasion to develop deeper, richer skills, and we feel incompetent in basic areas of life. The inner craftsman in you can come alive through a variety of soul-enhancing works.

What can I do?

STEP 1: Become a free LifeCraft member to watch the Concepts Made Clear videos on work and leisure.

STEP 2: Commit to reconnecting to your humanity by learning a craft, be it metalwork, preserving food, or splitting wood. 

STEP 3: Evaluate your relationship with money based on Socrates’ advice. See A Different Approach to Money

STEP 4: Foster a healthier perspective on work by understanding leisure. Get started with the Leisure Series.

STEP 5: Read the featured Wednesday Quotes below to explore more aspects of work and how we can humanize it today.

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Featured Posts:

Working, For a Living

Working, For a Living

“The gods keep livelihood hidden from men. Otherwise a day’s labor could bring man enough to last a whole year with no more work.” Hesiod, Works and Days In both biblical and ancient Greek accounts, work is something of an enigma. Having an aspect of punishment, it is...

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Recent Posts:

Physical Training, for the Soul

Physical Training, for the Soul

“He’ll work at physical exercises in order to arouse the spirited part of his nature, rather than to acquire the physical strength for which other athletes diet and labor. It looks as though they [the wise] established both [higher studies, and physical training] for...

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Good Work with Friends

Good Work with Friends

“Indeed friends seem to become better by working together…” Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics There is something about good, hard work. You feel so alive, so purposeful. And when you work alongside people you love, you feel so alive and so purposeful together. We do not...

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When Your Livelihood Goes Up in Flames

When Your Livelihood Goes Up in Flames

Many events happen by chance, and events differing in importance; (now) if they turn out ill they crush and maim happiness; for they both bring pain with them and hinder many activities. Yet even in these nobility shines through, when a man bears with resignation many...

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She Thought He Was a Gardener

She Thought He Was a Gardener

“Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him…” John 20:15 This really struck me this Easter. According to the account of John, when Mary Magdalene turned away from the angels in the tomb, she saw...

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The Path is Not Smooth For a Reason

The Path is Not Smooth For a Reason

“The Father himself Willed that the path of tillage be not smooth, And first ordained that skill should cultivate The land, by care sharpening the wits of mortals, Nor let his kingdom laze in torpid sloth.” Virgil, Georgics Why do things have to be so hard? Often I...

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As a Good Shoemaker

As a Good Shoemaker

“Yet even in these nobility shines through, when a man bears with resignation many great misfortunes, not through insensibility to pain but through nobility and greatness of soul... For the man that is truly good and wise, we think, bears all the chances of life...

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The Kitchen: The Last Stand of the Home

The Kitchen: The Last Stand of the Home

“…the heart of this common area is a kitchen or an eating area since shared food has more capacity than almost anything to be the basis for common feelings… …all the members of the family [need] to accept, fully, the fact that taking care of themselves by cooking is...

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Laying Waste Our Fields

Laying Waste Our Fields

“That day when Turnus raised the flag of war… The high commanders… From every quarter drew repeated levies And laid the wide fields waste of their field hands.” Virgil, The Aeneid I have always been alarmed by the ease with which a sand castle is stomped down by a...

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The Glory of Being Poor

The Glory of Being Poor

“In fine, having established the dominion of his city over so many people, he himself remained indigent; and always delighted as much in the glory of being poor, as in that of his trophies.” Plutarch on Aristides This renowned Athenian statesman’s attitude toward...

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Examining Our Relationship with Money

Examining Our Relationship with Money

How each of us responded to the Lotto jackpot gives us an opportunity to reflect on our relationship with money. I posted this article today at Crisis Magazine. My series on Aristides will return next Wednesday.

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When Scoundrels are Honored

When Scoundrels are Honored

“The man who keeps his oath, or is just and good, will not be favored, but the evildoers and scoundrels will be honored…” Hesiod, Works and Days Whom do we as a people honor? Aristotle once asserted that a nation will produce the kind of men that it honors. There is...

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Working, For a Living

Working, For a Living

“The gods keep livelihood hidden from men. Otherwise a day’s labor could bring man enough to last a whole year with no more work.” Hesiod, Works and Days In both biblical and ancient Greek accounts, work is something of an enigma. Having an aspect of punishment, it is...

read more

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