The necessity of work

“Those three things - autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward - are, most people will agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.” Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers Being unemployed for nearly 4 months, that sounds like a long time, has given me opportunity to think about the value of work. Since I haven't had any, HA! Recently I have been helping my parents with some projects around the house. Which have included painting. Honestly I was not very excited about the prospect of helping out with these projects when I was first informed. But since I have been helping out it has be interesting to notice the impact that taking part in some meaningful work can affect my outlook on life or mood. I enjoy doing work that has a high connection between effort and reward like mowing. When you finish mowing you are able to clearly see the product of your labor. Painting also has a very high connection between effort and reward which has been very nice for me since I feel a need to do productive things each day. When job hunting I feel like I spend so much time and effort without a clear reward. I can spend an entire week searching for positions and applying online without ever getting contacted for a single position. I believe that is a major part of what makes the job search such a difficult thing. I also believe the connection between effort and reward was one of the things that made my second internship so difficult. There seemed to be a low connection between effort and reward. Which I think is what made it difficult to stay focused, that and the fact that I was constantly trying to figure out what was next in terms of my future job and city. Last night I was sitting out on my parent's back porch sharing a few beers and consequently thoughts with one of my best friends, I believe he is in fact my longest friend (since I have known him as long as I can remember), Matt Stephenson. He was detailing how challenging his work was because of weight of going into the office and sitting at a computer from eight to five everyday. I can say that I still remember the exact challenge he was speaking of. We tried to figure out if there is a better alternative or if were we just romanticizing something different. Is there connection between effort and reward predetermined by the work that we do or can we work to discover or expose the connection in a more obvious way? Should the work we are looking for have more to do with the quote at the begging of this post or the relation it has to our financial well being? Maybe it is both.