By Madison Butkus
Hometown Weekly Reporter
With the fall season upon us, the Needham Free Public Library (NFPL), in sponsorship with the Library Foundation of Needham (LFN), hosted their first event that is part of the LFN Fall Author Series. For this discussion, Babson Professor Jennifer Tosti-Kharas was interviewed by Matt Robinson.
Robinson is the host of The Writer’s Block on The Needham Channel and author of “Lions, Tigers, and … Bulldogs? An Unofficial Guide to the Legends and Lore of the Ivy League.” When interviewing Tosti-Kharas, he asked her an array of questions stemming around her most recent book, “Is Your Work Worth It?: How to Think About Meaningful Work,” written by her and co-author Christopher Wong Michaelson.
The NFPL’s website went on to explain that Tosti-Kharas “is the Camilla Latino Spinelli Endowed Term Chair and Professor of Management at Babson College. Her research on meaningful work, work as a calling, and employee sustainability efforts has been published in top journals, covered in international news outlets, and recognized with Best Paper awards by academic publishers and the Academy of Management.”
When she and Michaelson were conducting research for their book they began to ask questions like if one should work for love or money? When and how much should one work? What would make life worth living in a world without work? And what kind of mark will your work leave on the world?
With all of these questions in mind, Tosti-Kharas explained in her interview that a copious amount of people go on to work their jobs without ever asking these types of important questions. “With the craziness that had happened like 9/11 and Covid,” Tosti-Kharas described, “so many of what Michaelson and I observed is that many of us get caught up in the day-to-day grind. We are doing our work, striving for the next deadline, thinking about the next promotion. You know, we are trying to do a great job and then other concerns come in like dependent care or dual career and all of this kind of stuff in which life gets really complicated. We are just doing our work without asking these bigger picture questions about why, what am I getting from it, is my work good, does my life feel good, does work add or subtract to my life being good or not and things like that.”
While this book goes on to depict both the inspiring and harrowing stories of real people and their work, Tosti-Kharas points out that work and its meaning is different for everyone. There is no five-point plan given away in the book nor does it tell anyone what to do in order to achieve meaningful work. It is simply put together to ask these important questions and help people better understand the value of work within all of our lives.
For more information about upcoming LFN Fall Author Series events and/or Tosti-Kharas and Michaelson’s book, please call the NFPL or visit their website at www.needhamlibrary.org.
