I’m a carpenter and over the years I have created beautiful, useful things from wood. You could say it was a skill that became a passion.

Today my job title is Project Manager. I can’t do carpentry as a day job anymore. My injured body won’t let me.

I’m still a carpenter on nights and weekends, mostly on my own house. My body just can’t take doing it 40 or 50 hours a week. My trade was taken away from me when my body broke down. It’s a deep loss.

We need to be careful as we think about robots replacing human’s at work.

See, there are a lot of people out there that believe people in the trades labor industry work because they have to, not because they want to, but friend, that couldn’t be further from the truth. We are all born with a skill and sometimes that skill becomes a profession, our trade. When you take that skill or trade away from someone, you take away a part of who that person is.

I believe, God created us to work with our hands; to turn a God-given skill into a purpose-driven craft and for some a life long passion. For one man that is technology, but for another it is rebuilding an engine block or fabricating a pole barn.

Nothing was more rewarding to me than building something from scratch with my hands, selling it for an honest price, and seeing a smile on the face of the person who needed it.

Now I sit at a desk and look at Spreadsheets all day. I wonder if I will ever again regain the passion that I lost the day I was forced to give up my skill. I miss working with my hands. I miss ending the day physically exhausted. I miss the accomplishment of physically creating something new.

Now, with my desk job, I have problems I didn’t have before.

I have anxiety. The constant stream of technology makes it hard to disconnect, shut off my mind, and rest. Emails, text messages, phone calls, twitter, Facebook, Instagram…. all these ways to connect to the world, but also, all the ways the world can connect to you thus making it next to impossible to disconnect, retreat, rest.

I have insomnia. An hour at the gym can’t take the place of an honest day’s work. I need physical labor, you need physical labor, we all need physical labor.

Replacing people with robots does more than take away jobs; It takes away a connection with our community, It takes away satisfaction and fulfillment, It takes away our health and wellness, it takes away purpose. Take away a man’s skill and you’re messing with his purpose and passion. You’re taking away a piece of his soul.