Have you ever participated in manual labor at any point in your life? Mowing the lawn, sweeping the floors or dusting the furniture? My guess is you have, and you probably lamented it as you were forced to do whatever chore your parents chose.
While these simple tasks count as manual labor, they don’t give you a sense of purpose. This lack of purpose stems from the fact that you were being commanded to do something. According to self-determination theory, external forces such as parents acting on your will to force you to complete an action will cause you to lose a key element of purpose: motivation.
Autonomy is the driving factor for motivation; the freedom to do anything you desire — which is the foundation for obtaining fulfillment in your life.
The authors of self-determination theory, Ryan and Deci, state that there exists two types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic.
These two types of motivation exist through different reasons, intrinsic motivation is inherently internal, requiring your devotion and care to a given subject enough to complete it for the sake of pleasure. Extrinsic motivation is an external concept, relying on something outside of your material possessions to complete the task.
Intrinsic motivation — a completely autonomous concept — relies on an exploratory approach to tasks, one that emphasizes actively seeking interesting things out without reward except the completion of the thing itself. However, without an interest in the novelty, challenge or aesthetic value of an action, you will fail to be motivated to complete it.
If you despise doing Chemistry homework, you will fail to be intrinsically motivated to do it because nothing about the work interests or pleases you. However, if you have a small interest or appreciation for writing short stories, you have a higher likelihood of finding enough intrinsic motivation to write one. If you cannot find anything pleasant or interesting about manual labor, then extrinsic motivation will suit you more.
On the other hand, extrinsic motivation refers to the performance of an activity to obtain a desired outcome. Extrinsically motivated actions possess varying levels of autonomy depending on the social situations influencing those actions.
Extrinsic motivation is the easiest to obtain because it relies on the promise of an external reward, like candy, money or another attractive object. Finding a type of reward for your work, instead of relying on obedience, will begin to gradually make each task more meaningful.
For instance, if you enjoy chocolate and reward yourself with it every time a new chore is completed, your interest in completing the chores will start to increase.
While increasing your extrinsic motivation to complete chores will lessen your hate towards them, it won’t actually provide the intrinsic motivation you’re looking for. Instead, you have to find more important manual labor; work which contains the aforementioned novelty, challenge or aesthetic value.
These types of manual labor encompass everything from constructing houses to HVAC repair — special tasks that require a certain skillset to solve. While it requires additional training and experience, actively working with your hands provides gratitude for the world that you won’t receive from typing out memos or conducting multi-billion-dollar business deals.
However, the most rewarding manual labor comes from nature-centered work, like cutting down trees, landscaping, farming or surveying. Bringing the labor closer to a natural setting not only enhances your self-esteem, but increases your autonomy to work well.
Ralph Waldo Emerson perfectly encapsulates this mentality. A pivotal figure of the transcendentalist movement, he worked within a tradition which prioritized self-reliance and man’s necessity to connect with nature to cultivate societal reform.
During his lecture, “Man the Reformer,” Emerson outlines the importance of manual labor, which prevents an individual from falling into conformity and maintains your independence through your connection to nature.
A strong connection to nature is vital to gaining a sense of fulfillment, as it will allow you to remain autonomous and find a meaning for your labor. If you believe you’re contributing to the benefit of not only society but nature itself, you are significantly more likely to enjoy manual labor.
Not only can you enjoy the labor itself, but you can maintain society’s autonomy in the process.
This brings me to my final point: To achieve a true sense of purpose from manual labor, you have to integrate the meaning of it into your identity.
There are many reasons to enjoy manual labor, but you have to find your reason. Only until you discover that can you be intrinsically motivated to enjoy it. If you are able to complete manual labor without the promise of a reward, then you’ll find a sense of satisfaction that nothing else can provide.
Killian Netherton is an English and psychology junior and opinion writer for The Battalion.
