For those trapped in routine jobs, reducing work hours and ensuring fair treatment is essential for maintaining dignity and sanity. However, the debate over work hours reveals a deeper systemic issue: the need to rethink the meaning of work, shifting from numerical obsession to clarity and love. The real question isn’t how long we work, but whether our work comes from deep understanding or blind compulsion.
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Originally published in the The Sunday Guardian on 22 feb '25.
The nature of modern industrial work is such that for most employees, work is merely a means to sustain life, fulfill desires, and achieve materialistic objectives. For them, the purpose of work is to maximize output to input.
The debate on working hours has intensified recently. Initially, it was suggested that Indians should work 70 hours a week, and recently, the chairman of a major organisation proposed 90-hour workweeks. This conversation spans many dimensions, significantly pitting employers, who prioritize profit, against employees, who work primarily to earn a salary.
The nature of modern industrial work is such that for most employees, work is merely a means to sustain life, fulfill desires, and achieve materialistic objectives. For them, the purpose of work is to maximize output to input. Input refers to the number of hours worked, and output refers to the salary received. Work is typically seen as something that brings money through physical or mental labor, with input measured in hours worked. The currently raging debate has hardly explored the true essence of work.
