I am convinced that this is one of the most misunderstood concepts. The first time I heard that there is a difference between your job and your work, I was astounded by and amazed at the misunderstanding that I had.
Here are separate explanations of the meanings.
Work
The original meaning of the word “work” (ergon in Hebrew) is:
“A deed or action that carries out and completes an inner desire (intension or purpose)” (Foundation, 2011).
Work has a relationship with purpose (from the Hebrew definition). It is also interesting to note from this definition that fulfilment is not external; it doesn’t start from the outside to the inside. In my opinion, this implies that nothing external has the ability to satisfy us. Fulfilment starts from the inside, and with work there will definitely be fulfilment because the definition states that it’s an “inner desire”. When an inner desire is fulfilled, it leaves us content.
Another interesting description of this word was given by Dr Myles Munroe as:
“The original meaning of the word work means:
To become,
To manifest,
To fulfil,
To reveal,
To become yourself.” (Sue, 2014)
To put this into context: If I plant an apple seed, it will reveal its intended purpose and become what it was created to be through self-manifestation, and fulfil its purpose of becoming an apple tree.
Your gift enables you to search and find this inner desire (work). This is why people who are gifted in a specific area don’t need to be given work to do; they just find it. Naturally they find areas to improve and proceed to do the work necessary. At my job I saw my line manager working to improve the rail condition for the heavy haul line for Transnet Freight Rail. I couldn’t fathom why he saw so many problems on the railway track. Looking back, I can see that his gift allowed him to see the work needed to be done. Generally, it’s people like him (that find work to do) that are of value to any company. It’s not the people that wait to be given things to do (like me at my job) that are highly regarded. In fact, it was people like me that would have been retrenched first if retrenchments had occurred.
Job
A job is a paid position of regular employment. It is a group of tasks related by similar functions that consist of duties, responsibilities and tasks that are defined and specific. Straightaway, you can see that a job has nothing to do with purpose or a gift. Anybody can be responsible for a task if they are paid for it (subject to having the authorization, qualification or skill).
Did you know: A job only exists due to someone discovering their gift and working on it. They discovered their gift and refined it to the point of success, where they ended up needing another hand to help them and offered to pay money for the help. Hence employment.
Did you also know: A job exists due to someone finding a solution to a problem. They discovered a problem and with their gift proceeded to solve it, which required the acquisition of labour to help - hence employment.
Jobs offer us the opportunity to develop ourselves. They allow us to interact with people, develop good interaction and communication skills and give us the necessary patience to be under submission. In my opinion, jobs are only placeholders for purpose. They allow us time to discover and refine our gift while receiving an income to keep us going. If your work is your daily job then you are well set because you are going to do something every day that feeds your gift. Very few people experience go to jobs that they like (I will do a study to prove this).
The differences
Jobs are always temporary; they are not permanent. They are placeholders while you refine your work. In contrast, work is permanent as it is something within you that you can take wherever you go. This is why people who have discovered and refined their gift succeed wherever you put them. Meanwhile, a person who changes location is not guaranteed of a job even if they have the skill.
Depending on the level of skill of a person, they usually have no say in how much they would like to earn from their job. With work, once the individual has reached a point of perfection through self-manifestation, they stipulate how much they want to be paid for their work. In other words, a worker names their price. Why? No one will do the work like they do because their natural gift is unique to them and they bring something completely new to the table for which they can negotiate a price.
I once enquired about how much it would cost for AKA to come and talk at one of my conferences (see email below) and was shocked by how much he charges. But because he has reached a state of perfection, he is able to charge a mind-blowing amount due to the gift that he has refined to perfection.
You can get fired from a job. You CANNOT be fired from your work. Who can fire DJ Black Coffee from being a musician? He can’t be fired because he has reached a state of full perfection.
Between the ages of 60 and 65, you retire from a job because you withdraw from an occupation. You cannot retire/withdraw from your work. You will labour and offer service until you die. In other words, you cannot retire from being yourself because your work is who you are and is your source of existence.
Depending on the responsibility level, jobs require a skill whilst work requires natural ability. But before we see your brilliancy in your area of work, you need time for manifestation in order to be acknowledged.
The reality
If you follow Simon Sinek’s work you will quickly recognize his theory of the “why” and his obsession that each middle-class person should be going to a job every day that fulfils their passion. I believe that his view is from a first world country’s perspective. South Africa is a third world country where you don’t have the luxury to change jobs just because the job place doesn’t fulfil your passion. In fact, once you get a job in any third world country and you happen to be in the middle class, you have to hold on to it for dear life because you are not guaranteed of another one.
Well, what does it mean to be middle class? In South Africa, economist Justin Visagie describes the middle class as a household of four persons with a total income of between R5,600 and R40,000 per month after direct income tax. These people are vital to economic growth while also forming a solid consumer base to drive productive investment.
Since 2004 the number of black middle-class individuals with a tertiary qualification has grown by more than 2 million. The problem is that more and more people (especially blacks) are in careers that do not resonate with their natural talents, thus prompting people to “learn” to love their jobs in order to pay for living expenses such as cars and houses. Most blacks didn’t have access to this leisure and so now it seems like we are definitely “settling the score” with the way we are in debt as a people.
The reality is that the majority of middle- class people are going to a job every day that does not tap into their area of gifting. To prove this, I did a short unofficial study at my job place which is 50% white and 50% black, and comprises of 60% males and 40% females. The sampling consists of technicians, engineers and senior engineers between the ages of 24 to 35 years. We are all middle-class citizens earning between R17000 to R47000 a month. I asked everybody two questions. The first question was, “Do you know what your gift is?” and the second was “Would you say that your job taps into your area of gifting?” and the results are illustrated below.
Just under 60% of the people said that they know their gift. In fact, all but one of my white colleagues said they know their gift. I can attribute this to ex model c schools that did a better job in identifying where each of their school learners’ natural talent is. As for my black colleagues, 50% of them didn’t know their gift and 30% said they are not sure. This, for me, proves that the majority of blacks that were previously disadvantaged are ignorant when it comes to issues of gift identification. In the black schools, only career guidance was taught but never the issue of gift guidance. This left a large band of generational ignorance that is in danger of repeating itself if there is no education in the subject matter because if we had been shown or educated about our gifts, choosing a career (that suits the gift) would have been easier – just like our white colleagues.
Under 25% of my colleagues said that their job taps into their areas of gifting while a massive 60% said it doesn’t. The rest (under 20%) were not sure. This survey proved to me that many people are not happy in the workplace. They are just doing the job in order to sustain themselves.
So, what now for us?
No human can set you free. Freedom comes from a discovery of information. But not just any information; only information of the truth. What is mentioned here in Part A is information aimed at bridging the gap of your lack of knowledge in the area of gifts and talents and the importance of it, or reaffirm your knowledge if it was something you had been observing.