Dorothy L. Sayers on Work and Vocation

Sayers wrote a lot of articles on work. This is from "Why Work?"

The official Church wastes time and energy, and moreover, commits sacrilege, in demanding that secular workers should neglect their proper vocation in order to do Christian work – by which She means ecclesiastical work. The only Christian work is good work well done. Let the Church see to it that the workers are Christian people and do their work well, as to God: then all the work will be Christian work, whether it is church embroidery, or sewage farming. As Jacques Maritain says: “If you want to produce Christian work, be a Christian, and try to make a work of beauty into which you have put your heart; do not adopt a Christian pose.” He is right. And let the Church remember that the beauty of the work will be judged by its own, and not by
ecclesiastical standards.

http://faith-at-work.net/Docs/WhyWork.pdf

G. K. Chesterton on God and Work

G. K. Chesterton viewed the making of products for personal use as one of the highest goods. The true path to happiness, according to Chesterton, is the self-sufficient home where the family produces goods for themselves. God is to be praised because he is the maker of things.

And this experience had made me profoundly sceptical of all the modern talk about the necessary dullness of domesticity; and the degrading drudgery that only has to make puddings and pies. Only to make things? There is no greater thing to be said of God Himself than that He makes things. The manufacturer cannot even manufacture things; he can only pay to have them manufactured

The Autobiography of G. K Chesterton by G. K. Chesterton.

Steve Jobs on Vocation

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And, most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” (Steve Jobs: Commencement Address at Stanford, June 2005)

My problem with Steve Jobs's view of life is intuition and one's inner voice can be wrong. Consider this quote from Dr. H. H. Holmes (1896)who was a mass murderer.

"I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing." (Confession, 1896)

In Steve Jobs's case his inner voice changed the world in amazing ways, but one's inner voice is not a reliable guide in life to benefit the whole of society. There has to be a better way.