Good Work, Part 3

If Shrek can come back for a third round, why not Good Work?

Today I am contemplating E.F. Schumacher's guidelines to good work:
“First, to provide necessary and useful goods and services.
Second, to enable every one of us to use and thereby perfect our gifts like good stewards.
Third, to do so in service to, and in cooperation with, others, so as to liberate ourselves from our inborn egocentricity.”

This description appeals to me because of the clarity and the 3 key points he raises:
1) The emphasis on “necessary and useful”, because it's open to interpretation. The key is that the good or service feels necessary and useful to the person who is doing the work. That opens up the possibility to be happy in any job because your happiness depends more on your outlook than on your income or other indicators of prestige, for example
2) And secondly the idea of perfecting our gifts. Do you think of yourself as being a steward of your gifts, talents and life energy? It’s a different perspective from living as if I owe something to someone else all the time and have to work hard to pay that debt. “Steward” is often associated with precious things like wealth, or natural resources. So to place myself in the role of perfecting my gifts means I take myself seriously in a cherishing kind of way.
3) And then there’s the concept of service again. It shows up all over the place in descriptions and definitions of good work. We want to give in order to feel a part of things. And it is by giving that we receive – whether thanks or reward from the outside, or a sense of liberation on the inside.