You’ve Been Important All Along
Remembering life’s value during a time of death
This article continues the ideas laid out in Why You Matter, where I describe how being, doing, and belonging influence our self-worth. Here I describe why unemployment can be so difficult to accept.
For an overly capitalistic country, the pandemic has been an important reminder. It has reminded us that the aged have value, and their value comes not just because they worked. They’re important because they love and are loved, and perhaps most importantly, they have value just because they are human. Children are great reminders that we all have a right to exist, because they never forget it, and they never let us forget it either. They think they have a right to constant attention too, which is both cute and tiresome. This effortless belief that they deserve to enjoy their life and are entitled to the help they need is something retired people often need to relearn. It releases them from the guilt that comes with not being able to work anymore, and ensures they’re well cared for. Only then can they feel free to enjoy the years that they have left.
Adults aren’t so lucky. We have an obligation to develop our abilities and find a way to be useful, hopefully one that we can be proud of. Someone has to support all the children, old people, and people who are out of work! We should and do take pride in that role as providers, but too often we forget that our work isn’t the only thing that gives us value. This is especially true in the countries that have very little support for the unemployed during their working years. Social judgement from themselves and from others can make the jobless feel worthless. I’m always impressed by the power of this illusion. We may work to support children and the elderly because they have a fundamental right to be, but as soon as we lose our jobs, we often forget our own.
We need to remember our value, and admit that there are plenty of situations where it’s normal to be unemployed. The Great Recession didn’t happen because we all suddenly got lazy. When automation takes your job, it’s not because you were bad at it, and when your job is shipped to a different country it’s not because you were doing it wrong. Sometimes we do suck at our jobs. It’s not uncommon to get hired for a job you’re just not ready for yet. You quit or you get fired, then you move on. That’s easy to say and hard to do. We think of our jobs as a big part of who we are. In a way that’s good, but it’s also dangerous because if we lose them, we can lose ourselves too.
The pandemic made this problem obvious. For many working-aged people the lockdowns were hard. Without work they didn’t feel that they had any value anymore. If they didn’t have a good support network of family and friends, they were left home alone, trying to survive off their fundamental worth as humans. It can be done, but at this stage of life it leaves us hungering for more. Asserting that adults who can’t work, don’t work, or are forbidden to work still have value can feel radical, but it’s essential to our morality. The pandemic has been an opportunity to come together and show each other that we’re important not just because of what we do, but because of what we are. We have always had that value, and we always will. Like small children, we need to learn to claim it, so that even in when we’re feeling unloved and useless we can know that every one of our breaths is precious.
