The Four Labors of Life

1. Physical labor – regular old manual work.
2. Intellectual labor – manual work in the brain.
3. Emotional labor – the work of building, maintaining, and breaking-up relationships.
4. Spiritual labor – the work of getting to know our Self.

The Nature of Labor

At any given moment, every person is engaged in at least one form of labor; whether they are aware of it or not.

Each labor makes the previous ones easier. For example, intellectual labor makes physical labor easier, and emotional labor – building a team or community – makes intellectual and physical labor easier.

However, it is all a double edged sword. Someone might use emotional labor to break-up another’s relationship, or physical labor to destroy another’s property (aka, war).

The Psychology of Labor

When we are young it is easy to sustain ourselves on the manual labors alone; physical and intellectual. But, as we get older, if we do not perform emotional and spiritual labor, our labor first becomes our prison then our destruction.

• Every person has one labor that is their strength.
• A healthy person can do all four labors when necessary.
• A conscious person can choose which labor is best in the moment.

The Labor Ecosystem

A healthy and evolving community requires all four forms of labor, equal in value and integrated in application. A community is people of different labor working together in a certain dynamic that evolves with the environment.

Communities crumble when people look to only one form of labor, when corporations and governments look to only one form of labor, to solve all problems.

The Value of Family

There are no broken families, as all families, no matter in what state, are a reflection of the community and will produce the type of labor the community needs.

Engineering The Future

The natural system is not perfect. Especially in these modern times, as changes occur faster than the system is designed to respond. Moreover, as civilization evolves, people will put much energy into the belief that they can manufacture a balanced system artificially, which will incidentally fight against the people created to restore balance. This creates a game that is continuously playing out over generations.

A healthy religion can make the natural process of balancing much more efficient and effective. But the religion needs to be able to adapt and evolve, as nothing can remain static in a dynamic world.