"Live to Work or Work Live"
When I first heard this saying long ago its meaning seemed pretty clear. Work was the enemy, something you did for survival and to finance your real life. Your hobbies, your relationships, your pleasures were your life, work was what you did to pay for them. If you worked so hard it took up all your time and energy leaving you no room for these real life things then you were living to work. This is true for many. If you lack skills and/or motivation, passions that align your intelligence, your emotions, your actions and for some their destiny, then this point of view works. This approach also works if your passions are attached to or expressed in a way that is a minority pursuit or just in a way that doesn't inspire monetary value.
For example, an artist does a painting. It is bought by one person who loves it, so she gets what it's worth to that single person. Let's say all her friends love it but can't afford to buy their own painting so their love does not translate into value for the artist, only into kudos for the new owner. Big corporations in the entertainment industry are very aware of this and work hard to ensure they stick with activities that can capture value from the appreciation and pleasure of the arts they support – music performed gets little until recording gets behind it, theatre earns little but recorded as movies is very valuable, graphic design original aren't worth much on their own until printed. Thus they put an enormous amount of effort into copyright and other intellectual property law.
If you do have a serious passion it transforms work into an lover, an ally, turning this approach inside out, especially if you find a way to gain value for your efforts. Value in a form that is easy to communicate and allows many people to express it in a way that isn't too great a tax on them and builds up into enough to help you live life in a way that doesn't separate your pleasures, your bliss from your way of contributing to society. Sadly our society has lost the concept that just existing, being is of value, although in the past it was limited to that small group the aristocracy. It may always have been rare that you find people who value you for simply existing – your parents, your lover/partner (if you are lucky and able to accept it), and most especially your kids – more often your value comes from what you do.
Some of us have been conditioned so deeply to struggle, to value ourselves for what we do, not for who we are, and so find simply being, let alone being loved for who they are, very confronting. The balance between life and work, being and doing, has been screwed up. If you live to work I still think it is imbalanced even if driven by the monomania of passion. Wholeness means catering to and expressing all of who you are - actions, relationships, emotions, feelings, insecurities, fears and individuality. Simply being is the ground of self-love, not self-aggrandisement, from which all these grow. What happens when you sit in silence? This is a good diagnostic for your relationship with life for its own sake, for letting yourself to be, accepting who you are as you are warts and all.
