Episode 84 - Work and Career

It is important to be a Christian disciple in the workplace. As Catholics, we need to have the right mindset and approach to work. In this episode, I talk about the importance of having the correct approach to work and some of the challenges that we might face. 

Transcript

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Welcome to Catholic money talk, where we talk about all things money and finance, and we try to do it through a lens of being Catholic, where our ultimate goal is to one day be in Heaven with the Lord. I am your host. Paul Scarfone, thank you for being here today. You foreign Welcome back to Catholic money talk. Today, I'd like to talk about work and career, but before I do that, let's say a prayer in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen, Heavenly Father. We thank you for this day. We thank you for all the ways that you love and bless us, Lord, we know that you have an awesome plan that you love us so much. Please allow us to yield to your Holy Spirit. We ask this all in Jesus name, amen, in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit, Amen. So I got to thinking, and I was asked to give a talk a couple weeks ago to a bunch of young men who are trying to learn more about their Catholic faith and how to be a disciple on mission in the workplace. And I was asked to give them a talk on work and career. And as I was reflecting on it, I thought it was some of the principles in there are very good and appropriate for what we do here on Catholic money talk, and we'll talk a lot about how to behave with your money and how to be a disciple with your money, right? I'll say, Why did God create us to know Him, love Him and serve Him in this life, so we could be happy with him forever in the next but how do we know Him, love Him and serve Him with our finances, right, with our money, and what are the appropriate behaviors for that? What's the appropriate mindset perspective? And I think the same can be said about our work and our career. And so as we talk about, how do we manage our finances, well, how do we pursue our work? Which produces the finances that we use to sustain our life? And before we get started, I wanted to just talk about a few areas of terminology. So let's define some terms. The first is work. So as we talked about work, work isn't just money that you know, things we do for money, work is something we put effort in that produces an economic result. So for a stay home parent. That is work, because the economic result that it produces is we don't have a child care expense, right? So things would include like, and if you're a student, that would be like, your studies, right? Your pursuit of a degree. So raising kids, housework, studies, those could all be considered work. I would even put in, like cutting the grass, right? Those are things that are just work, that if we didn't do it, we'd have to pay someone to do a job. So the first definition was work. The second one is Job. Job is going to be work that is done for money, right economic remuneration, right money. We can have a job if we're trained for it, or maybe it's just a part time thing. Maybe we're in school or between jobs and we're waiting tables at night. That could be looked at as a job and that might not really feel like a career, the term occupation that could be used for a particular type of job that maybe we have training for, it could be what we've studied for. But, you know, jobs, we might hop from job to job. We might not hop from occupation to occupation. We may kind of stay in that particular field. And then lastly, career, right? So, we've done work, we've done job, we've done occupation and career. Let's say that a career is something long term, right? And it doesn't have to be all working at the same place. It could be a particular field of study, or maybe a particular ladder that we're climbing, maybe a particular trajectory we're on. And you could think of career as, you know, in the same sense, when people say, I have a career change, right? I'm changing a trajectory. I'm changing maybe a field of study, all right, so those are kind of our terms. Otherwise we could say work and career, and you know, that might all fall into the same thing. So it just gives me a little opportunity to define a couple terms here. But work is good for us. Work provide. Provides you know, our job, our work, our career, working and earning income is able to provide for our our livelihood, our family. We can pay our four walls, right food, shelter, clothing, transportation to work. We can be generous when we work and we earn money, and we should all have something to do right work is of great dignity to us. I was just thinking, we have a new pope, right? I don't think I've mentioned that on the podcast yet, because I took a week off, but we have a new pope, and Pope Leo the 14th. And he was discussing in one of his initial um homilies about why he picked Leo the 14th and he he referenced that Leo the 13th was here at the turn of the last century, right? So from the 1800s to the 1900s and there was an industrial revolution going on, and it was very important to protect the dignity of the human person, and part of that is as it relates to work. So we all need something to do. We should all find something to do, whether it's work or a job. We shouldn't be idle, right? We don't want to be idle. We don't want to be lazy, even if you're independently wealthy or a student living on off of other people, maybe you're retired unemployed, or maybe you have some form of disability and you feel like there's not much you can do. We still need to find something to do, to build ourselves up, to build up the people around us, to give us life so that we're not idle. And if we want to be a disciple of the Lord, right, if we want to know love and serve Him in everything we do, we have to do that at work as well. And I know one of the things I've struggled with my entire life, and early on, it was harder. I have gotten better as I've matured in my Christian faith, but it's so easy sometimes to wear different hats, right? To wear our hat for our workplace. Maybe it's our hat for our faith community, our church. Maybe it's a hat for our family, our friends hat, our golfing hat, our fishing hat, and it just it's a different person that shows up in those situations. And our goal is to, in all those situations, to be a consistent disciple of the Lord. So that's important, and we want to have those great character traits and Christian qualities like being diligent and being respectful and responsible and being people of integrity in the workplace. So there are a couple challenges that I do want to highlight that we have, especially for us in the in the US, where it's kind of an open environment to get jobs. There's so many different opportunities. So some of these challenges we have, there's good and bad, right? The good is, there's so many different fields of studies now, and different career fields and places to work or find, you know, be trained for an occupation or a particular career. There's so many technology has created that you can just think of, you know, 100 years ago, your options were a blacksmith, a butcher, a carpenter, right? A doctor, right? There, there was, there's a handful of them. We could probably list them all nowadays. There's so many. There's so many. You could say, you know, I'm in computer. Well, what part of it? There's so many different fields right now, which is, which is, which is pretty cool, that can give us a great opportunity. But the challenge with all that is there's so many things that are ever changing. I was listening to a podcast probably a few months ago, and the person was saying, how many times, if you're going for a four year degree in some field of technology, when you start to when you come out, the what you've learned has already been outdated because it changes so quickly. So that's a challenge. The other challenge is it's harder to feel like maybe our job will be relevant in the future. With AI and other things that are coming out, we can feel that those present some challenges, right? Our our useful skills and abilities, will they be needed? So those are some challenges. But the in particular way, I think there's four significant challenges that we face. The first is consumerism. We live in a consumerist culture. Much of the input from the world around us is designed to get us to consume more and more, right? So consumerism is this tendency to consume companies. They spend billions of money on billions of dollars right on advertising to get us to buy stuff, whether it be good services or experiences. And sometimes we can get lulled into them. I'm thinking of some. Subscriptions, right? A music subscription where you subscribe and all of a sudden, you know, maybe a year goes by and they say, All right, well, we're putting ads in now, unless you want to pay us a little more than you have been paying us to have the ad free version, right? And so they slowly lull us and bring us into things and subscription to the subscriptions do that, they might create new hurdles for us to overcome, to enjoy the same content the way we want online as for advertisements follow us around. You go to websites as, Hey, you want some cookies, and we say, yes. Now they're watching what we do, and they're and that's where, when we go do a you know, if you go to a website. Let's say you had just been looking at girls at Home Depot, and you go to a, you know, ESPN, or something like that, a sports website, all of a sudden, in the margin on the left to the right, or maybe floating in the middle of the screen, there's an advertisement from Home Depot for that same girl you were just looking at. They're following us around and social media, that's, you know, for consumerism, that's another tough one, because it's almost like all of our friends on social media, or however we meet these people, sometimes there's complete strangers, but they're advertising to us, and maybe it's their experiences that we're seeing that we think we need, or maybe we should be chasing those same things, and Many times they're not bad things. We just don't need them. And maybe those things aren't actually appropriate for people that are trying to be disciples of Jesus, right? People that are in pursuit of heaven, trying to be saints, running after the Lord. So we need to know what our needs and wants are to avoid consumerism, we also need contentment, right? And I have a whole episode on contentment. And contentment is the opposite of just thinking we'll need more stuff to be happy, right? Contentment is knowing that the Lord loves us and that by itself, is enough, right? And he will provide for us, and we need to be content with that. But advertising is perhaps the most obvious example. Few of us can avoid it, and all the advertising is doing is trying to get us to buy more, and it's just constantly bombarding us. So we need to restrict and and have some restraint as it comes to spending and consuming. And the other thing that can creep up in this area of consumption, and again, I have a couple episodes on this, is lifestyle creep. Lifestyle creep is just when our wants just completely expand and expand and expand as our income does, and it just consumes more and more and more of our income, and we have less to put towards our goals and the things we feel the Lord is calling us to. So that's the first challenge. Is consumerism. The second one is careerism, and that is getting to the top at all costs, right? And the thing about being, being in a career, is we want to, we want to try to grow and get recognition from other people. And sometimes we receive that one. We can receive it through pay, right? You get a bonus. You get some type of achievement at work that has has money assigned to it that can feel like a great, great recognition, advancement, right? And promotion can feel like great recognition as well, but the thing to remember is the actual like recognition. What we actually want said to us is by the Lord at the end of our life, Welcome home, good and faithful servant. That's the recognition that we want, right? That's that's the that's what we're all longing for. But sometimes along the way, these things can remind us of that, whether it be through pay or through advancement or other people just recognizing us for the job we did, right? And so we want to just have a healthy desire for that, not one that we're just climbing to the top at all costs. And one of the things I've spoken about this on the podcast, and this is really, I think, particularly for men, but women, women can feel with it too. I think sometimes women might, they just view it slightly differently than men. And what am I saying here? So men tend to define themselves by what they do. Women tend to define themselves by what they think other people think of them, right? And so women and men, they'll look at promotion maybe a little differently, right? There's spectrums, and there's overlap, and they might have some that look at it exactly the same way. But in general, speaking, and we learned this from psychology and sociology, that men define themselves by what they do, right? You ask a man say, Hey, tell me about yourself. Oh, I'm a plumber, I'm a financial coach, I'm a lawyer, I'm a doctor, right? That's what they do. It's the first things out of our mouth. Women tend to define themselves both. Think other people's think of them. So for a woman to receive a promotion that's very up building to them, right? That that lifts their esteem, and that tells them that, hey, other people view me as whatever fill in the words, capable, responsible, smart, right? All those types of things. Men, when they get a promotion, they might tend to feel like they're doing better on the scoreboard, right, like it's more of a competition. And so there's just, you know, and again, we do those aren't good things, right? We want to identify ourselves by sons and daughters of God, not by what other people think of us or by what we do, right? And a great quote that I I've been I heard a couple weeks ago for a reflection on a by a friend. He was giving us just a reflection going into prayer. And this really stuck with me, and I've been taking this into prayer every day. This is a quote from Saint John Paul the Second, we are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures. We are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity become the image of His Son. Jesus, wow, I'm gonna say that again. St John Paul the second. We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures. We are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of His Son, Jesus. And so in one sense, it doesn't matter if we're the top of our field or kicking butt in the workplace. And, you know, advancement here and there and if we try and fail at something, it's okay, like we are not the sum of those weaknesses and failures. We're also not the sum of our successes and failures either, right? We are the sum of the Father's love for us in our real capacity to become the image of His Son, Jesus. So we want to be confident in who we are, and that'll help us in our career, right? And so careerism, we don't want a career to take over our lives, right? Sometimes, in order to advance careers, people might sacrifice their families, their personal welfare and maybe even their Christian commitment. They might be expected to work on reasonable hours, move to different cities or just live for their jobs. And in fact, we we don't want a life to support our career. We want a career that supports our life, our Christian our Catholic life. That's what we're looking for. So we want to be aware of careerism. The third thing is insecurity, right? Insecurity that's just being uncertain or anxious, and we live in an unstable economic situation. You know, years ago, Gone is the day, right, when we were expected to work at the same business or company for all of our lives, right? Like we could, like back in the day, you could expect to work at one place, and it would keep on providing for us until we died or retired, and they'd have a pension attached, and you were just done, right? And you they would take care of you your whole life. That doesn't happen anymore, right? We've talked about that, right? Even if we're self employed, we think, Oh, I'm self employed. Um, you know, my own boss, like, I'm never gonna fire me. I'm self employed. I'm trying to figure out, you know, what kind of clients I have next month so I can continue to keep going right my wife's business. Every every month, things change, and we have a reasonable expectation of maybe what our next month's income will be, but we we don't have a guarantee. It's not like we have a salary right, that our boss is just every two weeks we're getting paid. No, neither. You know, most people are on self employed don't necessarily have that right, but this insecurity one root cause could be some of the changes in technology I mentioned that earlier, right? Everything's changing, and part of that is the way the work gets done. The insecurity of the work situation might make us approach occupational career matters in a highly anxious way, and sometimes we might not make great decisions because of that insecurity. I was speaking to a friend recently who was really struggling in their job, and things have changed so much, and one thing that they had been doing kind of got eliminated from their plate, because AI can do it now, and they were talking about drastically going to do something different, starting from, from, you know, the first rung, so basically, competing with 20 year olds for a job, and they're almost 50, and that job, even if they get it, it's, it's not going to be. To provide for their family, just the pay rate is too low. It's for people that are just coming out of college and just starting out, and they probably don't have the level of financial responsibility that he has. But it's just there's, there's a fear that can get to us when we feel like we're not having success, or we're worried about the future. So insecurity can be a very, very big challenge for us. And then the fourth challenge is, let's call it the black hole effect. What does that mean? It just means that there's sometimes jobs, occupations, careers, that people might get sucked into and then we never see them again, right? And again. Black holes something from physics, but sometimes it can be applied to a work situation. You accept a certain job, and then you're just you're gone, right? It absorbs all of your time and energy and radically reshapes your entire life. And we want to be very careful of those. We want to be able to set appropriate boundaries. And sometimes we can see it coming, and sometimes we can't, and we we just experience it. One ways I see this happen sometimes is people that work in some type of ministry, right? It could be a youth youth ministry. Maybe it's for a church. Maybe it's for some other very worthy non profit that's out spreading the gospel. And the demands of the job can sometimes overtake the other areas of their life, not because someone's demanding it of them, but because there's stuff to do all right. And we can all look at the work that's in front of us, at our jobs, and say, Wow, we can always right. We can always keep cleaning our house. We can always keep making sales calls. We can always keep doing nothing's ever done. And it's easy for some of us, if we have a nine to five to be able to, like, leave work at work and go home, but sometimes, when we're out serving others and being passionate about spreading the gospel, sometimes that can overtake all the areas of our life, because we're doing, I'm doing air quotes with my fingers. We're doing God's work, right? But there still has to be an appropriate boundary for our family and our life and our Christian community and our schedule. We need to be able to spend personal time in prayer, right? Some of the foundational building blocks of our life cannot be jeopardized because of a job, and that's hard to do, especially if you're working in ministry. This black hole effect can be really a tricky one there. It's a little more obvious when it's a secular job, right? And I know this. We live close to New York City. I've had friends that work in New York City, and they might get on a train at 530 in the morning and not get home till 830 at night, because just the demands and the travel. And you know, there's many times where they have to think long and hard, like, how is this affecting my life? Right? Is, does my family see me? Do they even know who I am? And sometimes this black hole effect with jobs and careers can very easily tear families apart, break up marriages and cause other problems. So we want to be very, very careful of that. So those are, those were the four challenges. I'll say them again. It was consumerism, careerism, insecurity and the black hole effect. And then just lastly. So what should our Christian what should our Catholic approach to work be? I right work, first of all, and I'm going to give you about four, I'm going to give you four points of this. First of all, work is part of God's plan for the human race. It is if we look back in Genesis, the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of even of Eden to till it and keep it. That's from Genesis two, verse 15. So in other words, the first thing that the Lord gave his newly created son right Adam, was to work. So we've been having to work from the beginning. Second, we should make an economic contribution to the people we live with. So as a husband or a wife, we should be able to make an economic contribution to the people we live with. That might be leaving the house and working and, you know, bringing home the bacon, right, making money to pay for home expenses, or it could be serving our family by being at home, raising kids, food, shopping, house cleaning, being the, you know, the chef, and running to and from the store, and couponing and all those types of things that all adds economic contribution to the people we live with, to our household. So that's two so first. God's work was part of God's plan for us. Two, we should make an economic contribution to our household. Third, we need to be able to provide for our families, and this is a joint responsibility for the husband and wife. Right? Years ago, maybe the husband was the only one working and providing for the family, but nowadays, sometimes just the economic situation demands that both spouses work, right? Especially if you're having a big Catholic family, this is going to be a challenge. There's going to be lots of expenses, and I would, I would encourage if, if a spouse could stay home to raise the kids, that's awesome, right? That is just such a great blessing. If one of the spouses earns enough money where the other can can kind of stay home to be present to the kids. But sometimes we need to have some part time work, right? One spouse might need a full time job, the other one has a part time job. Ideally, if you can do it from home, it's great, but our goal as parents and spouses is to provide for our family, right? And and then it doesn't stop with our family, but also the needy, right? So to provide for our family, the needy, and to provide for the work of the Lord, we do that through our tithe and through other generous donations, right? And Saint Paul, in his exhortation to the community in Thessalonian, he says, but we exhort you, brethren, to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs and to work with your hands as we charged you, so that you may command the respective outsiders and be dependent on nobody, right? So, work is a good thing. It's a good thing. So that was the third thing. Fourth is it's helpful to have a job that we enjoy. It's so helpful to have a job we enjoy. It's not the highest consideration, right? It doesn't have to be our favorite thing to do. It should be able to provide for us. And so here's kind of my little list of the work that we should do. One do we enjoy it? And sometimes it might not be the work itself, but it could be the people that we're working with. I mean, I am a big fan of people, and you give me the right group of people, right? I'll say like, you know, with the right group of guys, I'm happy to do anything right, from, you know, brain surgery, if I was skilled to do it, to, you know, weeding a garden bed, right? I you know, to, you know, raking garbage, you know, throw whatever you could think of the jobs you most likely would like and least likely like. For me, it's typically about the people I get to work with about less than what I'm doing, right? My favorite thing is to like go fishing. Maybe I love fishing, but I'm not going pro there. So that's I'm not able to do that. And that's the second point, right after do we enjoy it? The second one is, can it provide for us? Right? We might love to do something, but it just doesn't have enough. You know, it's just not going to produce the dollars we needed to do. And then the last one, does it fit our life of being a disciple of the Lord, right? So those are my three questions. Do you enjoy it again? It doesn't have to be the actual work. It could be the people we're working with do you enjoy going there, doing that every day? Does it provide for you, and does it fit our life of being a disciple? So those were a couple tips on our Christian approach to work, right? The first one, work was part of God's plan for the human race from the beginning. Second, we should all make an economic contribution to the people we live with. Third, it is our duty to provide for our families, the needy and the work of the Lord. And fourth, it is helpful. If our job is enjoyable, and my three little questions for enjoyable work, do we enjoy it again? Can it provide for us, and does it fit our life of being a disciple? So if you're listening to this, you probably work. There's probably work you do. You probably have a job. Maybe it's an occupation. Maybe you're trying to figure out a career right now. So hopefully this was helpful to you on your journey towards heaven and trying to be a faithful disciple of the Lord. Thank you for joining us today. God bless. Thank you for listening to Catholic money talk. I hope you join us again next time, please click Subscribe in your podcast app to get notified of new episodes. God Bless. You and have a great day. You.