“We honor life when we work. The type of work is not important: the fact of work is. All work feeds the soul if it is honest and done to the best of our abilities and if it brings joy to others.”

-- Matthew Fox

What value do we unconsciously (or consciously) place on different kinds of work? Have we internalized a hierarchy that says that some kinds of work are more important than others? If our labour goes unpaid, at home or through volunteer efforts, do we undermine its value?

“Now in order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it: they must not do too much of it: and they must have a sense of success in it — not a doubtful sense, such as needs some testimony of others for its confirmation, but a sure sense, or rather knowledge, that so much work has been done well, and fruitfully done, whatever the world may say or think about it.”

-- John Ruskin