CHAPTER XXXVIII 

 THE DAY'S WORK IN RELATION TO HEALTH 



Questions. 1. How can the kind of work that you do benefit or injure 

 your health ? 2. Can any person learn to do all kinds of work ? Can 

 every person learn to do all kinds of work ? 3. Why are there so many 

 specialties in the medical profession? 4. Can every kind of work be 

 made interesting? 5. Can every kind of work be made useful? 



301. Healthful work. Since most adults spend the greater 

 part of their waking hours at their special occupations, it is im- 

 portant that, so far as possible, they do v^ork that is in harmony 

 with their abilities, their tastes, and their interests. It is only 

 in this way that we can get enough satisfaction from our daily 

 activities to maintain our mental health and our productive 

 efficiency. We cannot be happy unless we can achieve that per- 

 sonal success which comes from having something to show for 

 our effort, or from doing things that we feel are worth doing. 

 Even where they are able to earn enough money, many people 

 are unhappy because they are not interested in the activities 

 which their daily work requires, or in the results which their 

 efforts produce. Much of the dissatisfaction, then, arises from 

 monotony in the work, from the lack of meaning in the work, 

 from the lack of interest in the outcome. For all these reasons 

 it is very important for all of us to find out what kinds of work 

 there are, what they require of the worker, what they offer to 

 the worker, how we may fit ourselves for one line of work or 

 another, and how we may fit into various kinds of work. 



302. Skilled work and unskilled work. Every one of us wants 

 to do the highest grade of work of which he is capable ; every 

 one of us wants to do work that is both satisfying to the worker 

 and useful to the community ; yet it is often difficult to tell in 



advance what the value of any particular work is going to be. 



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