Work. Some of us love it and some of us hate it, but either way, we all spend a lot of time doing it. While it’s normal to have the odd bad day at work, no one enjoys doing work they genuinely dislike, day, after day, after day.

As JWs, our work simply HAD to fit in with what the organisation required. This typically meant a job that would allow you to take time off when you needed it, not work late nights or weekends, and generally not expect so much of you that you had no energy left for the organisation. As a result, it is possible that the work you do now is a direct result of your time as a JW.

If your current job is anything other than what you would have chosen for yourself, don’t despair. Half the battle is defining what you actually want for yourself. Once you have worked this out, making plans to achieve it is far easier.

However, as former JWs, we could unknowingly be holding on to various notions about the role work ‘should’ play in our lives and how we ‘should’ feel about our work. Not only can this zap some of the fulfilment we derive out of our work now, but it can lead us to make choices which take us further away from what will make us happier and more fulfilled at work.

So before you start spending countless hours perusing job ads, or running about trying to make up for lost time, let’s take a few minutes to understand the JW view of work and how this may have affected you and your choices to date. This will help you make better decisions about your work in the future.

While it may be a bit confronting, bringing our various unconscious and unhelpful ex-JW hang-ups out for an airing is the best way to make sure they don’t continue to rule our lives. 

How the JW organisation views ‘secular work’

1. Its main purpose is to enable you to serve the organisation

As JWs, the focus of our lives is serving God and any secular work was purely to enable us to do this more fully. We were encouraged to get a job that fitted in with what the organisation needed, which, as mentioned, was generally a job that would allow you to fulfill all your required theocratic activities and responsibilities. If your work took anything away from ‘the Truth’, you needed to seriously reconsider your priorities.

Your work also needed to be in line with ‘bible principles’, which likely meant that you restricted your job searches to only things you knew the organisation would approve of. Higher education is not required for the kinds of jobs the organisation tends to approve of, and even if we did pursue further study, we likely did it with the aim of finding a ‘JW approved’ job that would enable us to devote as much of our lives as possible to the organisation.

2. Secular work is not to bring you meaning or fulfilment

Secular work was not meant to be a source of meaning and personal fulfilment. It is a means to an end only, and that end is to serve God. Whether you enjoyed your work or not was totally irrelevant.

The organisation wants and needs to be the only ‘true’ source of meaning, happiness, and fulfilment in your life. This is a way of controlling the rewards (or perceived rewards), that members receive. If being part of the organisation/serving God is the only thing you find truly meaningful, you are much more pliable and open to being easily controlled by them. You will spend all of your remaining time and energy trying to do as much as you can for them.

The organisation does not want to compete with anything else for your attention. It knows full well that if we pursue higher education and/or careers we enjoy, this will open doors that not only make us realise how truly uninspiring ‘theocratic activities’ really are, but it will reduce the power of their grip over us because we have other things in our lives which we find meaningful.

3. Secular work keeps you busy in a JW approved ‘safe’ way

Whenever we are doing anything outside of theocratic activities, we could potentially come into contact with various ‘threats’ to our spirituality, so the organisation needs to keep us busy, but in a way which minimises the risk of us straying too far when we are technically out of their reach.

The organisation mitigates this risk by firstly ensuring we choose employment which does not conflict with bible standards, and then encouraging us to view our workplaces as our ‘own personal territory’, recruiting new members whenever possible.

We are also encouraged to be a ‘good witness’ while at work and do everything ‘whole-souled as if to Jehovah’, with the aim of feeling some satisfaction by pleasing God in the way we go about our work when other Witnesses are not around. Believing God is watching us and is fully invested in absolutely every little thing we do, is a powerful way to keep us in line when away from the watchful eye of the organisation.

The organisation also knows full well the power of keeping us too busy to think too deeply about what we are actually doing. It is very aware that if you start pulling at one thread, then the whole fabric of lies will disintegrate. Keeping us on our busy treadmills when outside of theocratic activities serves their purpose beautifully, and having low paid work which tends to require more hours from us is even better for them. Just keep busy, don’t question anything, and everyone is happy.

4. Secular work is not to be respected or valued for its own sake

As JWs, we were expected to put the organisation first over our jobs and careers at every turn, regardless of the impact that this could have on ourselves and others in our workplace. We were required to value our jobs so little that we should give them up at a moment’s notice if our bosses or managers would not approve our time off for ‘theocratic activities’. This not only meant giving up the security of our hard-earned positions just to show up for the organisation, but also leaving the burden of our own workload on our colleagues.

This shows a total lack of respect for the role work plays in our lives and in society more broadly. Respect only goes one way in this organisation. If something is getting in their way, discard it, regardless of the consequences.

It is also confusing because on the one hand we are meant to be a ‘good witness’ at work and do it ‘whole-souled as if to Jehovah’, but on the other hand, this doesn’t apply if it doesn’t fit in with what the organisation needs at any given time. Apparently, it is perfectly ok to leave your secular work undone and your colleagues in the lurch with no notice, so you can swan off and be a good Christian…

5. Secular work provides the organisation with resources

The organisation can only support so many full-time pioneers and Bethelites, and it knows it needs additional resources coming in. So at the same time as telling you that your secular work is only to enable you to serve God, and you should leave your job if it isn’t fitting in with kingdom priorities, they need you to have secular employment so you can continue to support them. Hence the rhetoric about showing your support for the organisation however you can, including through financial means. If you are not able to do much more spiritually, you may try and compensate by giving more financially. You may even find that this provides you with some level of satisfaction if you are in a job you don’t particularly enjoy, because you can view it as your means of supporting God and ‘his organisation’.

But, now you are out. And none of this applies anymore…

The impacts of the JW view of work

The most obvious impact all of this can have is that we did not pursue a living which was in line with our skills, talents, and interests. We likely restricted our education and career choices, and we may now be in a job we don’t like or just isn’t a good fit for us. Because of the need to make ends meet, taking time off to study or pursue a different career now may be very difficult.  

The JW view of work can also lead to people-pleasing and over-performing in our jobs. For so long we were trying ‘to do things whole-souled as if to Jehovah’, that we likely went over and above what was actually required of us. We were also likely trying to make up for all those times when we couldn’t put in the long hours because of our JW commitments.

In addition, work was a ‘safe’ way for us to invest our energy and potentially become good at something outside of being a JW. As members of the organisation we don’t actually have an individual identity, and we are constantly told how useless we are and why we should never have autonomy over our own lives. As a result, work may have been one way for us to have to receive some validation and build some self-esteem outside of the organisation. We may continue to go above and beyond because this is where we previously received some small boost to our sense of self-worth.

You may also feel like you need to be productive all the time. As JWs, our secular work and our JW activities are all we do. We don’t know how to NOT be busy. Previously, when we weren’t busy enough, this meant we weren’t doing enough. If you were having fun, you weren’t working hard enough. And if you had time for relaxation, you were probably bordering on being a ‘bad association’.

The result of this however is that now, we have no idea who we are outside of work or the JW organisation. We had two main things in our life: Work for the organisation, and work to support our work for the organisation. And now one is gone, and the other, well, the purpose for doing it has totally changed.

There is a great big hole where our entire purpose for being used to be, and we don’t know how to fill it because we simply don’t know who we are or what we want. It is normal to feel a bit lost for a while, especially if you are also stuck in a job you wouldn’t have chosen for yourself.  

Because the JW organisation showed no respect for anything outside of it, and the sole purpose of your work was so you could do more work for the organisation, there is also a chance that you may not respect your own work that much, and could even resent it to some degree. You may know you need to do it, but feel that you shouldn’t have to work this hard because what you are doing is not all that important anyway. You may under-estimate and undervalue the role it plays in your own life, the local community, and the broader economy, because as a JW, we did not learn to value or even understand these things.

Here are a few questions to help uncover any lingering JW influences about work:

• Do you take on other people’s problems at work? Always going the extra mile? If yes, why do you do this? What rewards do you get from this?
• Do you over-perform to make up for other people’s shortcomings, but end up burning the candle at both ends and have no time to yourself, then feel resentful about it? If yes, why?
• Do you spend every ounce of energy at work so that there is nothing left for you and/or family when you knock off? If yes, why? Is this actually expected of you? What motivates you to do this?
• Outside of your work, who are you?
• Do you always feel like you need to be productive and find it hard to relax?
• What happens to you when you aren’t busy?
• What are the things you like and dislike about your work?
• If there was one thing you could change to make your work more rewarding, what would it be?
• Who benefits from the work you do? What is the bigger picture and how does your work fit in?
• Do you respect the work you do? And the work others do? If not, why?
• What type of work do you respect?

Time to reassess

As with our entire reason for living after leaving the organisation, our entire reason for working has now also changed. It is natural to feel a bit lost until you work out what you actually want for yourself, without all of the JW imposed views of work.

Now, we are not working to ‘please God’. He won’t care what we do, if there is a god, he loves us anyway. We are not working just to enable us to serve an organisation. We are not working just to enable us to do even more work.

Now, we can be real people. Real people with our own identities, both at work and outside of work. We can have interests. We can love our jobs if that is our thing. Work our backsides off in our own business if we want to. But whatever we do, we do it because it is our own choice, for whatever reason, not because we are just sinking our efforts in a JW approved ‘safe’ way, trying to make sure we are ‘being a good witness’, or drawing our only sense of validation and self-worth from our jobs because we get none elsewhere. 

If we are in work that is not our ideal, we can still find ways to think more positively about it and build a better life both at work and outside of it. Having more things to look forward to outside of work definitely helps keep things in perspective during a long day grinding away, particularly if you are in a job that you don’t find all that rewarding.

Let’s now think about the purpose of work in your life and how this motivates you to work. Do you see it as just a way to pay the bills and give you a life outside of work, or is your work your life? Do you want meaning from your work or is it a means to an end? Do you want to feel ‘passionate’ about your work or is it not all that important to you? What do you want your work-life balance to look like? Do you even need a balance? Do you care how many hours you work? Do you thrive on the additional responsibility which comes with a promotion, or do you want a job that ensures you can be home by a certain time?

In Part 4 we will identify the purpose for work in your life now (or what you want it to be), which will help you make good decisions when it comes to finding work that is the right fit for you in your post-JW life.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope I haven’t worked y’all too hard!

See you in Part 4.

Renee :o)