A Personal Manifesto on Success and Happiness Research Paper

A Personal Manifesto on Success and Happiness - Research Paper Example As the paper declares work as a noun defines an activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result. Another conception of the word work is that it is an activity as a means of earning income or employment. From these two concepts of work can be drawn different perceptions. Work as merely an act of doing something productive and work as an activity that generates income such as employment. The latter concept of work suits the definition that is widely known by most people. Having a job, an employment, running a business, all these are confined in the context of work that has an end goal of making money, salary, income or profit. According to the report findings the history of work is far rooted in the history of mankind. How work is viewed today is a byproduct of human experiences along the path of historical milestones of men. The concept of work can be traced back even into the realms of the Bible. God said to Adam, "In the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread, till thou return to the ground". Even in the beginning according to the Bible, God assigned the allegedly first ever work to Adam. Work then can be described as some activities that need sweating in order to eat. In that sense it would tilling the soil and planting and growing plants to bear fruits to eat. Work then spells really hard work and is contrasted with leisure as Adam Smith puts it as toil and trouble. Thus leisure is a different story from work that is why according to the bible God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work. (Genesis 3:19 as cited by Dupre and Gagnier). If to rely alon e from the following context it can be concluded that God wants people to work really hard during work days and set a separate day for leisure which is somewhat deviated from the modern context of work that can go along with play—having fun while working all at the same time. People of yesteryears works comparatively different than modern people does work. The work they knew then was more on physical exertion. Tracing back the first humans, they did not work in the way that we understand it today. Primitively like before, our ancestors spent much of their time searching for food and shelter, a short-term and endlessly repeated process that was necessary for survival (The Readers Digest Australia). This repeated process lead to the definition of work division wherein some are hunters and others are gatherers and basically women do the cooking for the whole group to survive and move on. Work in this essence brings definition to food and survival. The idea of the working day is a product of