Article September 21, 1992 Issue

Your work cannot be undone

We may wonder sometimes whether what we're doing really matters. The fact is, each of us is making a lasting contribution.

Leigh Russell Daugherty

So much of our labor is quickly undone. The clean clothes stacked on the bed are in the hamper at week's end. The lawn needs to be mowed again; the weeds are back. Meals are consumed in a fraction of the time it took to prepare them. With housework and yardwork we come to expect this. It doesn't shake our feeling of worth to see the work undone, although it tries our patience at times.

But many people today are facing a crushing picture of their labors lost. It is a time of corporate mergers and acquisitions budget cuts and attendant layoffs, and a rapid increase in technologies that make certain skills obsolete. In the flux, people not only find themselves unemployed, but they also see projects and programs eliminated that they have worked hard for, often over long periods of time. This is a much deeper challenge to the heart than facing another load of laundry.

In these circumstances, it can look as though X number of years of your life have been washed down the drain. Identity and employment often become so entwined in thought that we tend to hear the statement "Your job is no longer needed" as "You are no longer needed or valued." Unhealed, these feelings may drift into bitterness and self-doubt. One may well wonder if there is anything he or she achieved that really lasts, that no one can undo.

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