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Enjoying One's Work (From Mr NANA, Provincial High School of Kaya)

Work is desirable, first and foremost, as a preventive of boredom, for the boredom that a man feels when he is doing necessary though uninteresting work is as nothing in comparison with the boredom that he feels when he has nothing in comparison with the boredom that he feels when he has nothing to do with his days. With this advantage of work, another is associated, namely that it makes holidays much more delicious when they come. Provided a man does not have to work so hard as to impair his vigour, he is likely to find far more Zest in his free time than an idle man could possibly find.
The second advantage of most paid work and of some unpaid work is that it gives chances of success and opportunities for ambition. In most work, success is measured by income, and while our capitalistic Society continues, this is inevitable. It is only where the best work is concerned that this measure ceases to be the natural one to apply. The desire that men feel to increase their income can procure. However, dull work may be, it becomes bearable if it is a means of building up a reputation, whether in the World at large or only in one’s own circle.
Continuity of purpose is one of the most essential ingredients of happiness in the long run, and for most this comes chiefly through their Work. In this respect, those women whose lives are occupied with housework are much less fortunate than men, or than women who work outside the home. The domesticated wife does not receive Wages, has no means of bettering herself, is taken for granted by her husband (who sees practically nothing of what she does).
Of course, this does not apply to those women who are sufficiently well-to-do to make beautiful houses and beautiful gardens and become the envy of their neighbours ; but such women are comparatively few, and for the great majority, housework cannot brings as much satisfaction as work of other kinds brings to men and to professional women.
The satisfaction of killing of time and of affording some outlet, however modest, for ambition belongs to most work, and is sufficient to make even a man whose work is dull happier on the average than a man who has no work at all. But when work is interesting, it is capable of giving satisfaction of a far higher order than mere relief from tedium.
The Conquest of Happiness, by Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell : The greatest British philosopher and mathematician of the century. Awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, 1950.