The Sorrows of Work

by The School of Life, Alain de Botton (Editor)

Overview

A fresh approach to our careers, offering hopeful solutions to a myriad of professional challenges. 

Work can be a source of creativity, excitement, and purpose. Yet many of us find ourselves confused, discouraged, and exhausted by our jobs. We are often tempted to blame ourselves, and to feel privately ashamed by our jobs. However, as this book lucidly explains, there are many reasons why our jobs demoralize us, including the evolution of modern work, the role of technology, and the mechanics of the economy.

The Sorrows of Work offers an invigorating and optimistic perspective on our working lives - and presents the skills and tools we need to overcome any professional challenge.

• AN INVIGORATING GUIDE to the professional challenges we all face.
• ILLUSTRATED with full color images throughout.
• FRESH CAREER PERSPECTIVES from The School of Life
• BUILD THE SKILLS you need to thrive in your career.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781999917906
Publisher:	The School of Life
Publication date:	07/29/2020
Series:	Essay Books
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	104
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

The School of Life is a global organization helping people lead more fulfilled lives. Through our range of books, gifts and stationery we aim to prompt more thoughtful natures and help everyone to find fulfillment.

The School of Life is a resource for exploring self-knowledge, relationships, work, socializing, finding calm, and enjoying culture through content, community, and conversation. You can find us online, in stores and in welcoming spaces around the world offering classes, events, and one-to-one therapy sessions.

The School of Life is a rapidly growing global brand, with over 7 million YouTube subscribers, 389,000 Facebook followers, 174,000 Instagram followers and 166,000 Twitter followers.

The School of Life Press brings together the thinking and ideas of the School of Life creative team under the direction of series editor, Alain de Botton. Their books share a coherent, curated message that speaks with one voice: calm, reassuring, and sane.

The School of Life is devoted to developing emotional intelligence. It addresses issues such as how to find fulfilling work, how to master the art of relationships, how to understand one’s past, how to achieve calm and how better to understand and – where necessary – change the world. These ideas are delivered though a range of channels: from videos, books and products, to classes, events and one-to-one therapy sessions.

Headquartered in London, it operates around the globe with twelve international branches (Antwerp, Amsterdam, Berlin, Istanbul, Melbourne, Paris, São Paulo, Sydney, Seoul, Tel Aviv and Taipei). The School of Life is a rapidly growing global brand, with 3 million YouTube subscribers, 260,000 Facebook followers, 47,000 Instagram followers and 128,000 Twitter followers.

The School of Life Press brings together the writing of teachers, psychologists and philosophers under the creative direction of series editor, Alain de Botton. The aim of all the titles is to share a coherent message with one voice.

Alain de Botton was born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1969 and now lives in London. He is a writer of essayistic books that have been described as a ‘philosophy of everyday life.’ He’s written on love, travel, architecture and literature. His books have been bestsellers in 30 countries. The School of Life is coming to the US in 2018. The San Francisco Conference will take place from the 23rd to 25th of March, and the New York Conference will be in the fall – exact dates to be confirmed.

Read an Excerpt

i. Introduction

There is no more common emotion to feel around work than that we have failed. We have failed because we have made less money than we hoped; because we have been sidelined in our organisation; because many of our acquaintances have triumphed; because our schemes have remained on the drawing board; because we have been constantly anxious and, for long stretches, tired and bored.

We tend to meet our sorrows personally. We believe that our failures are tightly bound up with our own character and choices. But the suggestion here is that the single greatest cause of our professional failure lies in an area that self-aware, moderate and modest people are instinctively loath to blame: the system we live within. Whatever our natural hesitancy, it seems we deserve to recast at least some of the explanations for our woes away from intimate experience and towards large-scale historical and economic forces. Although on a daily basis we are enmeshed in problems (inadequacies, desires and panics) that feel as if they must be our responsibility alone, the real causes may lie far beyond ourselves, in the greater, grander currents of history: in the way our industries are structured, our values are determined, and our assumptions generated. For a long time now, capitalism has been a confirmedly tricky system in which to retain equilibrium, make peace with ourselves, find fulfilment in our work - and cope. It's not quite our fault if, rather too often, we feel like losers.

This isn't to make a particular dig at capitalism, or to suggest that there may be easier alternatives at hand. Every economy that has ever existed has been bound up with multiple sorrows. Organising an equitable system of incentives, goads and rewards is as yet beyond us. We should be allowed to level criticisms, not in the name of arguing for an alternative utopia, but in order to depersonalise our sense of failure.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Specialization

Standardization

Commercialization

Scale

Competition

Collaboration

Equal Opportunity

Meritocracy

Conclusion