Worklife

How rethinking the role of work in our lives can help us flourish

Few things inspire as much hope, fear, joy, or misery as work. A difficult or degrading job can profoundly harm our wellbeing, while a meaningful one can bring with it many of life’s greatest goods. In Worklife, Paul Blaschko shows that how we think about work, what we expect from it, and the place we give it in our lives can determine whether it becomes a source of meaning and purpose that helps us flourish and build a good life.

Managing our work and integrating it into a well-lived life can seem impossible today, but Worklife reveals how it can be done. Drawing on philosophers and thinkers including Aristotle, Karl Marx, Virginia Woolf, and Hannah Arendt, Blaschko addresses many of today’s work-related disorders and challenges with verve and humor. He tackles “achievementism,” gamification, status anxiety, success addiction, burnout, leisure, work and family, and retirement through vivid examples, ranging from his own life to the monks of Grande Chartreuse, and from Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” to Wendell Berry’s “Manifesto.”

Revealing how reflection and some ancient wisdom can help us flourish at and through work, Worklife is an optimistic and inspiring guide to finding meaning, purpose, and contentment in today’s rapidly changing world of work.