Why Doing Meaningful Work Matters
In 2018 Johann Hari wrote a masterpiece on the topic of depression.
In the writing of his book “Lost Connections: Uncovering the real causes of depression — and the unexpected solutions”, Hari carried out extensive research and held numerous interviews with health practitioners, academics, and people who — like himself, have been battling with depression over the years. He examined the history of antidepressants, the interests behind big pharma and society’s reductionist reflex to attribute all our ailments and afflictions to biochemical disfunctions.
But more interestingly though, Hari went on to examine the environmental triggers that seem to be bringing people higher up in the depression and anxiety scale. It’s not all in the brain, he claims. There are contributing exogenous factors which can increase or decrease our propensity to fall into states of depression.
It’s an incredible book, and I urge you to head to your local bookstore (or the global one, Amazon) and get your copy.
In short, Hari ascribes the source of depression and anxiety to 9 different causes, 7 of which have to do with ‘Disconnection’:
- Disconnection from Meaningful Work
- Disconnection from Other People
- Disconnection from Meaningful Values
- Disconnection from Childhood Trauma
- Disconnection from Status and Respect
- Disconnection from the Natural World
- Disconnection from a Hopeful and Secure Future
In this post, I’d like to briefly touch on the first one: Disconnection from Meaningful Work.
Between 2011 and 2012 (with ensuing meta-analysis research over the years), Gallup conducted the largest and most detailed study to date on employee engagement. They studied millions of employees across 142 countries, and grouped them in three categories: engaged, not engaged, and actively disengaged at work.
Results were striking: Only 13% of employees worldwide are engaged at work(!), which means the vast majority are either sleepwalking through their workday (63%) or are overtly unhappy and disengaged (24%).
So what are the implications for this “unlucky” 87%? And how is that relevant in the conversation of depression and anxiety?
Only 13% of employees worldwide are engaged at work(!)
In his book, Hari brings forward research done by Professor Sir Michael Marmot in the late 70's, where he worked with the British Civil Service to unveil whether the marked differences in rank, position, status or salary amongst civil servants could be correlated with their propensity to suffer from depression, and their mental health in general.
The team was astonished to not only confirm their hypothesis, but to ALSO find that even with “people working at the same pay level, with the same status, and in the same office,” employees with lower control and autonomy over their work would be “a lot more likely to become depressed or develop severe emotional distress” than those with a higher degree of control and autonomy. Negative stress, turns out, did not depend necessarily on the level of responsibility or the difficulty of the decisions employees would bear, but rather on the level of control and influence they would have over their own work.
As obvious as this may seem, Marmot’s research was pivotal at the time and opened a new pathway to enable today’s conversation around mental health: Meaningful work matters, and sustained disconnection from it can lead to depression and anxiety. When work is enriching, life is fuller, energising and contagious, and that spills over into other things outside of work. When work is deadening, that will also reflect on all other aspects of life and the quality of relations you’ll sustain.
Empowerment, control over your work, and balance between efforts and rewards are hence positive stressors that will contribute to a fuller life. Doing work that matters is a fundamental source of happiness. And likewise, as Marmot puts it, when the opposite is true employees “will die a little coming to work each day, because their work touches no part of them that is them. Disempowerment is at the heart of poor health — physical, mental and emotional.”
Doing work that matters, which is aligned with your values and identity, is a fundamental source of happiness
We owe it to ourselves to strive daily towards building an enriching and fulfilling life. It’s a daily thing. It’s a habit we need to create. So how do we step out of autopilot mode? How do we have a more active stance towards life and work? What does it mean to work on purpose? To live on purpose?
Writing this entry made me think of our dear friend and LiveBeyond member Perry Ablan, who after spending 2 weeks with us in Colombia last May, left us with this note upon his departure:
“The LiveBeyond experience helped me reshape my views of work. It inspired me to find fulfilling work — work that motivates me and that I am passionate about. Living with a purpose: that was big for me. I took away that meaningful work is possible and that one doesn’t need to be confined to a 9–5. It’s helped me reevaluate my current career path. It was inspiring to see other remote workers and those pursuing their passions”
And you? What are you doing to create a more meaningful, enriching and fulfilling life through work?
