The other day I was at home, enjoying a moment of stillness. My girlfriend paused in the middle of her busy work-from-home day and asked why I wasn’t working. I told her I didn’t have any work to do. Without hesitation she said, “maybe it’s time to get another job.” She didn’t mean it harshly, but it gave me pause.

We aren’t facing financial issues. We live in a spacious apartment in one of the most expensive counties in the country. We can afford high-quality food for ourselves and our animals, and we still have enough left over for going out or traveling now and then. My work sustains my part in this lifestyle, so why would I take on more just to fill time? She didn’t suggest a hobby or some creative pursuit, her first instinct was to recommend more work. That response made me wonder how we’ve come to see work, and why our views of it can feel so different.

Her situation is different than mine. She doesn’t like her job, it takes up most of her time, and it still doesn’t pay enough to support the lifestyle she has. That lifestyle is propped up by her parents, who cover the gap. What struck me as ironic was that she has criticized capitalism and the grind that comes with it, yet she was the one telling me to take on more work. That contrast sharpened when I thought about my own perspective. I lean more conservative, working in an industry where outcomes are tied directly to effort, and yet I’m the one asking why I should chase more if I already have enough. That tension between us reflects something much bigger.

For most of human history, work was never treated as the centerpiece of life. In many societies, people worked until their basic needs were met and then stopped. If the harvest was good or wages were sufficient, there was no expectation to keep grinding simply for the sake of it. Leisure, reflection, and creativity were not seen as wasted time, they were the point of living.

The Greeks captured this most clearly. Work was considered a burden, something endured so that higher pursuits could be possible. Aristotle believed the money-making life was unnatural, a distraction from what truly mattered: contemplating one’s place in the cosmos, seeking wisdom, and cultivating expression. To him, flourishing came not from endless labor, but from the freedom to think and create.

That perspective carried into early Christian thought, though framed differently. Work was treated as duty, but in a limited sense — enough to sustain oneself, family, and community. Genesis cast labor as punishment, a consequence of Adam’s fall, while St. Paul warned that idleness was shameful: “He who shall not work shall not eat.” Thomas Aquinas added that labor was necessary only “by natural reason” to support survival. In all of these cases, the point was not to glorify work in itself, but to keep life in balance: contribution without obsession.

The great shift came during the Protestant Reformation. Luther and Calvin recast labor as a “calling,” where pouring yourself into your work became a sign of faith and a way to honor God. For the first time, labor itself was elevated as a measure of moral worth. This gave individuals freedom from the authority of the Church to mediate their relationship with God, but it also introduced a new kind of anxiety: when life’s meaning became tied to work, there was never a clear way to know if you were doing enough.

By the mid-20th century, Erich Fromm noted how deeply this change had taken hold. In Northern Europe, he observed, people had developed an “obsessional craving to work” — something unknown to free men before the Reformation. In a sense, people had traded one master, the Church, for another: their vocation. Along with greater self-determination came the insecurity of never knowing whether one’s labor was sufficient or worthy.

That anxiety hasn’t disappeared. Over the centuries, the religious frame has faded, but the expectation has not. The religious language may have faded, but the pressure to work never eased. Today, we still hear its echoes everywhere. Some voices preach duty in the form of hustle: wake before everyone else, work into the night, make work your identity. Others frame it as destiny: discover your personal calling, throw yourself into it completely, and let it define who you are. Either way, the conclusion is the same, work is the organizing principle of life, the thing that gives it meaning.

We may think of hustle culture as modern, but history seems to explain why her reaction felt so natural. She was giving voice to a worldview we’ve all inherited: that more work is always the answer. I guess I missed the memo! My work is enough, and I’m comfortable letting free time be free. She, on the other hand, may feel trapped by a job she doesn’t like and a lifestyle she can’t fully afford, so more work seems like the only answer. The paradox is that her critique of capitalism doesn’t release her from its logic, while my supposedly more conservative outlook lets me embrace a sufficiency that feels almost rebellious. It leaves me asking not why I don’t work more, but why we’ve been conditioned to believe that constant work is the only path to a meaningful life.