In his Jan. 21 piece “Technology and Unemployment, Part III,” Rahul Gupta-Iwasaki claimed that “traditional employment is a broken system,” a cause of unhappiness that frustrates our dreams. While such a view may be intuitive, here is another understanding.

On May 1, Catholics celebrate the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, the foster father of Jesus Christ. St. Joseph supported Jesus and Mary as a carpenter; for all his lack of education and career, he is venerated through nations and ages as the paragon of industry.

Who would argue that carpentry is exempt from monotony and frustration? Yet St. Joseph sacrificed the pleasures of the world to serve his family through taxing labor. Likewise we, aspiring to his happy death in the arms of Jesus and Mary, can rejoice to do our work, whatever it is, with ever greater excellence, for the love of God. Surely, we will find there a more certain happiness.

Is progress a flight from the taxing, the hard, the repugnant? Then let’s run from the lie that causes all misery: that life can be without suffering. Rather, we can offer our labors for the good of our community, for the love of our neighbor. Is that a regression or the greatest revolution?

May St. Joseph protect us.

Ted Fisher ’17

Contact Ted Fisher at [email protected].