Do What You Love? Do What Needs to Get Done.

I read a couple of essays that discuss the cliché concept of “Do what you love.” These were likely written for the season of commencement speeches when new graduates are showered with platitudes about how to live their lives. Both of the essays ( here and here) are critical of the notion. The idea that you should throw yourself into what you love seems to be so self-indulgent. Throw away all of the other work that exists and immerse yourself in what makes you happy. There is something compelling about the notion that finding what you love and doing it will lead to happiness all around. We will all labor happily, for it will not feel like labor at all. We will have chosen our daily activities; we will love them, and will experience work as if it were play.

Being the father of two young children, I know that play is a wonderful thing, except for when it is time to clean up and clean up we must. Toys strewn about are dangerous, unsightly, dirty, and are prone to being broken, drying up (think clay, paint, and markers) and becoming unusable. Any one of these could lead to limitation on the future experience of joy that comes with play (the work of children, no?). This cleaning up [of crap] reminds me of a quote I read recently that noted that man, while created in God’s image, and in many ways divine, still shits. I searched the internet for the quote and happened upon a related quote from one of my favorite authors, Milan Kundera. In “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” he wrote, 

Spontaneously, without any theological training, I, a child, grasped the incompatibility of God and shit and thus came to question the basic thesis of Christian anthropology, namely that man was created in God's image. Either/or: either man was created in God's image - and has intestines! - or God lacks intestines and man is not like him.
The ancient Gnostics felt as I did at the age of five. In the second century, the Great Gnostic master Valentinus resolved the damnable dilemma by claiming that Jesus "ate and drank, but did not defecate."
Shit is a more onerous theological problem than is evil. Since God gave man freedom, we can, if need be, accept the idea that He is not responsible for man's crimes. The responsibility for shit, however, rests entirely with Him, the creator of man.

I think he meant it as a playful indictment of the idea of God and religion, a precursor to the liberal atheism that is very much in vogue right now. I think that it also speaks to the idea that the world is far from perfect, a reality that is hard to understand and accept as we suffer through life.

Ruminating on the existence of shit and its seeming incompatibility with Godly perfection, seems to me to miss the point of what is to be done with the shit. It exists, like it or not, and leaving it out, like a pile of toys, has real downsides.

This is all to say that there are real shit parts of jobs. And some jobs are pure shit. They are thankless except for the paycheck, and even that may not make the work worthwhile. What would Steve Jobs say to that? How to love a job that is full of shit? Many of us might identify with such a question as few of us get to be CEOs, screen actors, professional athletes or novelists. Few of us get to do what we really love.

And to take the argument of Miya Tokumitsu, by convincing ourselves that we must do what we love, regardless of compensation, even those who end up doing what they love, get the financial shaft.  First, there is a great deal of low wage, but essential work that is done, not out of love, but because it is essential, like picking fruit in the hot California sun, removing garbage from alleys in the early hours of the morning, or caring for the terminally sick, chronically mentally ill, and elderly. We tell ourselves that this work, while important, does not require a high level of skill, intelligence, or training, so it is deserving of low wages. But we tell teachers and adjunct professors and social workers, and now lawyers and doctors, that because you are doing what you love, we should pay you a low wage, too, and if you ask for more, you shouldn’t be doing that work because you obviously don’t really love it. This tautology becomes the perfect crime for the capitalists, CEOs, and college presidents who make salaries many times more than the average worker at their respective institutions.

I think a much more realistic perspective is to do whatever needs to get done. Doing the laundry, making your bed, picking up the toys, cooking dinner on a Wednesday night, cleaning the bathroom, filling out paperwork, and going to meetings, should all be done because they need to be done. Even astronauts have to fill out reimbursement forms for their out of state travel-they are public employees after all.

We have already shown our capacity to make much of this drudgery go by with ease (see for instance, our high levels of efficiency and productivity). We could probably do more to reduce the bureaucracy and management culture of our labor (managers managing managers who conduct evaluations of evaluators who evaluate the people who actually produce the product and serve the customer). In fact, we could probably greatly reduce our work week, as the British are proposing, thus creating more jobs. This would probably have to go along with making sure our basic needs are met through high quality accessible schools, healthcare, and affordable healthy food. That is something that is not really out of reach, given the embarrassment in riches we have in those areas.  While also making more time to do the things we truly love.

What does this have to do with being Mexican? Well, Mexicans frequently bust their asses in shit work without complaint. Somewhere between that extreme and doing what you love lies happiness.

Earn Big Money!

Commencement season is upon us again.  Along with the joys of the season, these days there is a twinge of anxiety among the recently-minted graduates about their employment opportunities.  Some encouraging signs are beginning to emerge, however.  As reported in The Atlantic yesterday, the unemployment rate for 20 to 24 year olds with a Bachelor’s degree nearly doubled between 2007 and 2011, but began dropping by 2012.  While the types of available opportunities may be a factor in the lowering unemployment rate, the skills recent graduates developed through their courses of study may also play a role.

At least that is the suggestion from the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ (AAC&U) recent study about skills valued by employers.  The report, entitled "It Takes More Than a Major: Employer Priorities for College Learning and Student Success," highlights the idea that students should have "both field-specific knowledge and skills and a broad range of skills and knowledge" upon graduation.  Further, recent graduates should be able to apply their skills and knowledge to real-world situations in order to solve problems effectively.  As it happens, students develop these kinds of knowledge and skills through their studies in the liberal arts and humanities.

I have written before about the dangers of linking education only to potential employment opportunities, essentially arguing that learning should lead to a broadening of the mind or an appreciation of the aesthetic.  I also have suggested, however, that even given the employment-outcome orientation of education, schools should teach students the creative, problem-solving skills which they currently are not.  Adaptability – that is, learning how to learn - in our ever-changing world can ensure some degree of success in the workplace and can come from studying broadly and widely.  Such is the essence of the liberal arts and humanities.

Image from The Radical History Review. Available at http://chnm.gmu.edu/rhr/rhr.htm

The idea of education’s relationship to employment reminds me of one winter from my youth.  My eldest brother had returned home from his first semester at college, where he was majoring in history.  One day around the house, he was wearing a tee-shirt he had acquired while at school.  The shirt bore a caricature of Karl Marx.  The words “Earn Big Money!” appeared above Marx, while those below him inveighed, “Become A Historian”  The idea of Marx endorsing the pursuit of the almighty dollar struck me as funny, while the thought of becoming rich doing history was no less amusing.  (Nevertheless, that image likely influenced my own academic pursuits; though for the record I am still awaiting my big payday.)  In retrospect, my brother’s tee-shirt seems prescient.  While mastering Marxist interpretations of the past may not directly lead to vast riches, understanding that one’s studies are not an end unto themselves, but rather are an entrée into new and rewarding opportunities, could provide some degree of stability and security if not happiness.

By way of a Postscript, I have come to learn that my brother’s tee-shirt, which originated at The Radical History Review, was quite popular among particular generations of historians.  You can order your very own at The Radical History Review’s website.

Latino Graduation: The Good, the Bad, and the Possible

There was much ado last week over the announcement that the graduation rate among public high school students in the United States reached a 40-year high.  The National Council for Educational Statistics (NCES) estimates that up to 78 percent of students graduated high school within four years of starting their education, a rate not seen since 1974.  While welcomed news generally, the improvements among Hispanic and Latino students in particular caught many people’s attention.  Slightly more than 71 percent of these students graduated high school within four years of starting; representing a 10-point improvement over the past four years.  Researchers and others offered several reasons why Latino and Hispanic students’ graduation rates improved. Perhaps the most straightforward of these, and one that few even noted, is that there simply are more Hispanic and Latino students in school than at any previous point in time.

AP Photo/Reed Saxon from nationaljournal.com

The Pew Hispanic Center had reported the growth in these populations back in August 2012.  Pew’s report noted that as many as one in four public elementary school children were of Hispanic descent, while up to 24 percent of all pre-kindergarten-through-twelfth-grade students were of Hispanic descent.  The growth of the Hispanic and Latino populations in schools should not come as a surprise, of course, when one considers that these populations now represent the largest minority group in the U.S.

These upward trends are encouraging.  Unfortunately, they appear unsustainable when considering Hispanics and Latinos in higher education.  As described in Pew’s August 2012 report, Hispanic and Latino populations are the largest minority group on U.S. college campuses; representing the largest minority group at four-year colleges, and up to one-fourth of the students at two-year colleges.  While these enrollment figures parallel those for elementary and secondary schools, the graduation rates do not.  According to NCES data (summarized below), approximately 28 percent of Hispanic students graduate college within four years of starting.  The percent of students completing a traditional four-year education increases the longer students take to finish, jumping to 44 percent for students finishing in five years and to over fifty percent for those finishing in six years.

Table 1: Graduation rates for the 2004 starting cohort for select institution types

2004 Cohort	All 4-year institutions	Public Institutions	Non-profit Institutions
4-year completion rates	27.90	21.50	46.10
5-year completion rates	44.00	40.20	57.70
6-year completion rates	50.10	50.10	60.50

Source: National Council for Educational Statistic, Digest of Educational Statistics, Table 345. Available at http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d11/tables/dt11_345.asp

While improved graduation rates are a good thing, there are negative effects associated with Hispanic and Latino students taking longer to finish their schooling – increased personal debt and a delayed start to a career, to name just two examples.  The next set of challenges in the realm of Hispanic and Latino education include maintaining the improved high school graduation rates and addressing the higher education graduation rates.  This will not be an easy task, but I like to think it is not an impossible one.