A recent article talked about hard work in the Western world and how we feel 'good' if we think we have worked hard, and how we expect hard work from others. We like to know that a task accomplished meant that someone devoted diligent persevering hard work to accomplish it. Research has shown that if we think it was too 'easy' for them, we don't feel as much compassion toward them or as much thankfulness for their task.
The reading of this article has come on the heels of finding yet another article about Botswana's work ethic. By all reports over the last several years it has been rated pretty poorly and is getting worse. A recent report labelled Botswana as the laziest of the continent.
Well I must say that in our recent heat, I am thoroughly reminded of why people 'go slow'. 40 + degree days (that's celsius...= 104+ fahrenheit), of single digit humidity day after day, is enough to sap anyone's energy, hydration and alertness. Temperatures that remain high at night as well, result in sleep deprivation which only makes matters worse. Did you know that your heart rate increases 20 beats per minute for every 10 degrees celsius that the ambient temperature rises above 20degrees? Dehydration negatively effects cognitive (brain) function. Being dehydrated by just 2% impairs performance in tasks that require attention, psychomotor, and immediate memory skills, as well as assessment of the subjective state. Prolonged states of reduced water intake may adversely impact executive functions such as planning and visuo-spatial processing.
So....
Are the people of Botswana truly lazy?
Are Westerners really to be held up as the epitome of hard workers?......
In the West, hard work, is honourable.
(or should I say 'busyness' and physical seen activity, as the appearance of hard work)
To a great degree we associate activity and hard work with accomplishment and success. The article pointed out that this poses a problem, especially for people in 'creative' pursuits - they can appear to take a lot of 'time off' because their intense work can be accomplished in a few hours.
As I thought more about this, there is also a need for 'relax' and 'chill out' time for the creative person's brain to be in a state in which the creative/thinking time is productive. In other words their chill out time is preparation for their output - no different to time taken to buy all the materials in preparation to then actually physically build a shed. The buying is part of the work too. But its easy for Westerners to 'look down' on creative people as not being 'hard workers'.
As Westerners, if we are not 'busy' and even 'tired' from being busy, we almost consider ourselves as 'less' than acceptable, less than honourable. We are extremely task oriented. Books such as 'Crazy Busy' were written to address such a problem.
(it is worth noting that Japan also has 'hard work is honourable' as part of their cultural values but for a different reason - it is honourable because hard work gets a person a high position or helps earn lots of money so as to put children into expensive schools and university and both bring honour to the name of the immediate and extended family)
But....
In Africa, strong relationships is what is honorable.
We usually don't equate 'hard work' as sitting having coffee with people. However, this might not be physical work but it might be psychological and emotional and mental work! Talking, especially counselling, verbal negotiation, conflict resolution and discussion related to important decisions can be exhausting and require intense concentration. I have learnt from my own medical condition just how much the heart rate can be raised through intense thinking, analysing and processing in the midst of conversation. Our body doesn't have to be moving for our brain to be intensely active. In fact though our brain is only 2% of our bodyweight, it consumes 20% of our energy.
Yet we don't tend to think of it that way.
For an African, it is also of far more importance to spend long amounts of time in careful conversation to ensure relationships are in good order (and to the extent of having plenty of 'credit' in the relationship account), than to exert oneself physically for the sake of 'busyness'.
A while back in the midst of various power crises here, I recall a government spokesperson made a comment that 'we' have not paid good enough attention to the business of maintenance.
As I consider this hardwork/laziness dichotomy, the same principle applies to the 'maintenance' issue. It's not that Africans have no regard for maintenance at all, its just that what people value, they maintain. An African values (honours) relationships over things, so an African is more concerned with spending time working on and maintaining relationships so they remain in good condition. Hard work on maintaining 'things' is culturally a secondary issue. (not necessarily a non-issue, but just not the priority) Maintenance as a concept is not the issue, what is maintained and why, is the issue!
The difficulty has come when Africa wants what the West has got in infrastructure and technological advancement, without understanding that the West has come to value 'stuff' over people, and task over relationships. Greed for 'material wealth' will stifle relationships, and a jealous and greedy attachment to relationships will stifle material benefit from the abundance God has given us in our world. All that excessive 'stuff' comes at a price. Does Africa want to pay that price?
The issue isn't only that Africa might have an 'honour' emphasis,
but what it is that Africa considers honourable.
A Westerner (generally speaking) will sacrifice a relationship in order to get a task done and acquire 'stuff', because physical evidence of achievement gains a person honour. When we work hard and there's nothing to 'show for it' and we are made to feel like we must have made poor choices and wasted our time, and thus are 'looked down on' (shamed).
An African on the other hand, will sacrifice a task in order to preserve or better a relationship because who you know, who you are connected to, and who you can call on, brings success, and making sure relationships are in good order is honourable.
Both can learn from each other. Westerners need to value community and relationships more. 'Doing' tasks may not be as important as we sometimes think, as 'being' with people. How often have we heard that when an old man dies in the West he may wish he had spent more time with his family but never wishes he had spent more time at his job? A woman may have a spotless home but no 'space' for kids to be creative and a bit messy in the process. And Africans may need to learn to work harder at physical tasks if infrastructure advancement is to occur.
But we certainly don't want Africa becoming like the West where tasks can be the dominant focus and families are broken.
The West has become a place where hard work has morphed from something by which we can glorify God through the strength He has given for the purposes He has called us, into a cultural character quality that is to be pursued at the cost of everything else - so as to achieve status and honour for ourselves. A desire to honour God through hard work, has been replaced with a demand on ourselves and others to work hard or be despised. This problem is not caused by a 'protestant work ethic' as some might suggest, but by a self-centred work ethic.
Whether one is African or Western, either one can elevate what is valued and honoured to the place of an unconsciously obsessive and all-consuming focus. Both can have a self-centred work ethic - ie seeking honour for themselves rather than God.
Sometimes hard work and even 'overwork' can feel 'holy', especially if it is in the context of ministry - church workers, missionaries and pastors can find the 'line' of where overwork begins as difficult as all the work seems to be 'for God'. Eric Geiger on his blog included this comment:
In most roles, overwork feels sinful and neglectful. In ministry, overwork can wrongly feel holy. After all, you are “doing all these things for the Lord and for people.” Some leaders struggle to say no because doing so would feel like denying ministry to people. Leaders can justify all the hours in their minds, the neglect of their own souls, and the neglect of their families. Ministry can attract workaholics and give them a reason to justify their addiction.
Either tasks or people can become an idol: on this earth must both come under the overarching and supreme obligation we have to the One who created us.
If we don't have as first priority, the 'vertical' life mandate to Love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, we will get our secondary 'horizontal' life out of balance.
In God's agenda, neither task nor people are first priority, He is!
Whether we are Western or African we have to ask ourselves, "Are we on God's eternal heavenly agenda or on our own earthly temporary cultural agenda?"
Neither people nor tasks are an end in themselves as our earthly cultures want them to be.
God is to be our one and only goal - to honour, love and please Him. It is our relationship with Him that is above earthly relationships and tasks. He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the author and finisher of our faith. He is meant to be our starting point and end point and Director and Goal of everything in-between.
And in God's agenda it is people who will last into eternity. Tasks on their own will not last, especially when they are devoted entirely to acquiring or preserving'stuff' that moth and rust will destroy. Tasks in God's agenda are simply the means by which we do what pleases Him - loving the people He created and taking care and making best use of the world He created, in a way that honours and glorifies Him.
Although the first command given to mankind in the garden of Eden before the fall was a task - to multiply, fill the earth, rule over and put to use its animals, plants and land. (Gen 1:28), Jesus said that the two greatest commandments are both about relationships - with God and then with other people.
So while African traditional belief might have the people dimension mis-placed in how it elevates honour of people above God, it seems it may be closer to the truth of God's design than the increasingly secular West that elevates task accomplishment above both other people and God.
So is your hard work in the category of honouring God, or the category of idolatry?
Are your relationships in the category of honouring God, or of idolatry?
These are two questions I have to regularly ask myself too!
When we have God in the place of Highest Honour, we will begin to know His wisdom to keep both task and people in balance according to God's will and purposes.
People last for eternity, the tasks themselves do not.
Tasks may be part of the means of reaching people and loving people but they are not the ends.
Let us not forget, that it was in obedience to the sending by the Father, Jesus came to this earth to accomplish a task but for the purpose of redeeming people!
May we also, because of Honour and Love for the Father, obey Him in the tasks He has set us of being vessels He can use to show the world Himself through us so as to reconcile people to Himself.
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