one of the overriding reasons why modern
work is so boring is that we keep having
to do more or less the same thing every
day
we have to be specialists whereas we
would deep in our hearts surely be so
much more fulfilled if we could be
wide-ranging endlessly curious
generalists you can understand the
origins of restlessness when you look at
childhood as children we were allowed to
do so much in a single Saturday morning
we might put on an extra jumper and
imagine being an arctic explorer then
have brief stints as an architect making
a Lego house a rock star making up an
anthem about cornflakes and an inventor
working out how to speed up coloring in
by gluing for felt-tip pens together
we'd put in a few minutes as a member of
an emergency rescue team then we try out
being a pilot brilliantly landing a
cargo plane on the rock in the corridor
we'd perform a life-saving operation on
a knitted rabbit and finally we'd find
employment as a sous-chef helping make a
ham and cheese sandwich for lunch each
one of these so-called games might have
been the beginning of a career and yet
we had to settle on only a single option
done repeatedly for over 50 years
we are so much more than the world of
work ever allows us to be in his song of
myself' published in 1855 the American
poet Walt Whitman gave our multiplicity
memorable expression I am large I
contain multitudes by which Whitman
meant that there are so many interesting
attractive and viable versions of
oneself so many good ways one could
potentially live and work but very few
of these ever get properly played out
and become real in the course of the
single life we have no wonder if we're
often conscious of our unfulfilled
destinies and at times recognized with a
legitimate sense of agony that we really
could well have succeeded at doing
something else it's not our fault
that we've not been able to give our
multitudes expression the modern job
market gives us no option but to
specialize we can't be an airline pilot
one afternoon a week at research in two
days a month a singer/songwriter in the
evenings while holding down part-time
work as a political advisor a plumber a
dress designer a tennis coach a travel
agent and being additionally the owner
of a small restaurant sir
Lebanese Messi however much this might
be the ideal arrangement to do justice
to our widespread interests and
potential the reasons why we cannot do
so much were first elaborated at the end
of the 18th century by the Scottish
philosopher Adam Smith in the wealth of
nations Smith explained how what he
termed the division of labor massively
increases collective productivity in a
society where everyone does everything
only a small number of shoes houses
nails bushels of wheat horse bridles and
cartwheels are ever produced and no one
is especially good at anything but if
people specialize in just one small area
making rivets shaping spokes
manufacturing rope bricklaying etc they
become very much faster and more
efficient in their work and collectively
the level of production is greatly
increased by focusing our efforts we
lose out on the enjoyment of
multiplicity yet our society becomes
overall far wealthier and better
supplied with the goods it needs it's a
tribute to the world Smith foresaw that
we have ended up with job titles like
senior packaging and branding designer
intake and triage clinician research
centre manager risk and internal audit
controller and transport policy
consultant in other words tiny cogs in a
giant efficient machine hugely richer
but full of private longings to give our
multitudinous selves expression one of
Adam Smith's most intelligent and
penetrating readers was the German
economist Karl Marx Marx agreed entirely
with Smith's analysis specialisation had
transformed the world and possessed a
revolutionary power to enrich
individuals and nations but where he
differed from Smith was in his
assessment of how desirable this
development might be we would certainly
make ourselves a wealthier by
specializing but we would also as he
pointed out with passion dull our lives
and cauterize our talents in describing
his utopian communist society Marx
placed enormous emphasis on the idea of
everyone having many different jobs
there were to be no specialists here in
a pointed dig at Smith he wrote in
communist society nobody has one
exclusive sphere of
activity but each can become
accomplished in any branch he wishes
thus it's possible for me to do one
thing today and another tomorrow to hunt
in the morning to fish in the afternoon
to rear cattle in the evening to
criticize after dinner without ever
becoming a hunter a fisherman a Shepherd
or a critic
it's a beautiful but entirely
unrealistic dream we have collectively
chosen to make work pay more rather than
be more interesting it's a somber
thought but a consoling one to our
suffering is painful but it has a
curious dignity to it because it doesn't
uniquely affect us as individuals
it applies as much to the CEO as to the
intern to the artist as much as to the
accountant everyone could have found so
many versions of happiness that will
elude them in suffering in this way we
are participating in the common human
lot we can be sure that whatever we do
parts of our potential will have to go
undeveloped and die without ever having
had the chance to come to full maturity
for the sake of the real benefits of
focus and specialization
you