To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness. John Dewey

Protestant work ethic
In the Genesis story of the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve knew perfect happiness in a place where idleness (if not dalliance) abounded. This perfection had gods approval thus work came as a bane, not a boon – a punishment and burden that restricted enjoyment and fun. But this view of human nature provided no ideological basis on which to launch and sustain an industrial revolution. From the seventeenth century a profound moral division developed and by 1800 the new work ethic was well established (Tawny 1938; Thomson 1968)

Is it any wonder to keep this frame of mind dominant in the general population, as the meaning of work. That those who dominate, employ a full time education system from childhood to youth. A propaganda system expounding the work ethic, the national interests as being those of banks and multi national corporations rather than the interests of citizens? If you suggested such an educational institution that examined these things, and how we could train students to prepare themselves from the challenges of a useful working life you would probably be laughed at, such is the cynicism engendered around wage slavery along with the belief that the above suggestion is what actually happens.

Who we need to ask decides the value of our work? how come those who do the most creative work in our society also get most of the money and those who do the sometimes crucial zombifying tasks get the least? Why are the mothers and parents that have the responsibility of nurturing future citizens of our society, under valued and under supported? Why is the waged work that we do seen as more valuable, no matter how useless the product, than the work that is carried out in our community for the benefit of our community? Work first and for-most should be valued for its contribution towards a fair and creatively inclusive society, rather than financial terms. This would need a whole new evaluation of the meaning of work, something that has been a along time coming and an idea that has come of age.