by Alfred Adler
X. OCCUPATION
The three ties in which human beings are bound set the three problems of life; but none of these problems can be solved separately; each of them demands a successful approach to the other two. The first tie sets the problem of occupation. We are living on the surface of this planet, with only the resources of this planet, with the fertility of its soil, with its mineral wealth and with its climate and atmosphere. It has always been the task of mankind to find the right answer to the problem these conditions set us; and even to-day we cannot think that we have found 'a sufficient answer. In every age mankind had arrived at a certain level of solution, but it was always necessary to strive for improvement and further accomplishments.
The best means of solving this problem which we possess comes from the solution of the second problem. The second tie in which men are bound is that they belong to the human race and are living in association with others of their kind. The attitude and behavior of a human being would be altogether different if he were the only one of his kind alive on earth. We have always to reckon with others, to adapt ourselves to others and to interest ourselves in them. This problem is best solved by friendship, social feeling and cooperation. With the solution of this problem we have an incalculable advance towards the solution of the first.
It was only because men learned to cooperate that we could make the great discovery of the division of labor; a discovery which is the chief security for the welfare of mankind. To preserve human life would not be possible if each individual attempted to wrest a living from the earth by himself with no cooperation and no results of cooperation in the past. Through the division of labor we can use the results of many different kinds of training and organize many different abilities so that all of them contribute to the common welfare and guarantee relief from insecurity and increased opportunity for all the members of society. It is true that we cannot boast of having achieved everything that could be done; and we cannot pretend that the division of labor has reached its most fruitful development. But every attempt to solve the problem of occupation must take place within this framework of the human division of labor and the cooperative effort to contribute by our work to the advantage of others also.
Some people attempt to evade this problem of occupation; to do no work or to occupy themselves outside of common human interests. We shall always find, however, that if they dodge this problem, they will in fact be claiming support from their fellows. In one way or another they will be living on the labor of others without making a contribution of their own. This is the style of life of the pampered child: to demand whenever a problem faces him that it should be solved for him by the efforts of his fellows; and it is chiefly the pampered child who holds back the cooperation of mankind and throws unfair burdens on those who are actively engaged in solving the problems of life.
The third tie of a human being is that he is a member of one of the two sexes and not of the other. On his approach to the other sex and the fulfillment of his sexual role depends his part in the continuance of mankind. This relationship between the two sexes also sets a problem; and it, too, is a problem which cannot be solved apart from the other two problems. For a successful solution of the problem of love and marriage, an occupation contributing to the division of labor is necessary, as well as a good and friendly contact with other human beings. As we have already seen, in our own day, the highest solution for this problem, the solution most coherent with the demands of society and of the division of labor, is monogamy. In the way in which an individual answers this problem the degree of his cooperation can always be seen. These three problems are never found apart; they all throw cross-lights an one another; a solution of one helps towards the solution of the others; and indeed we can say that they are all aspects of the same situation and the same problem — the necessity for a human being to preserve life, and to further life, in the environment in which he finds himself.
Here we might repeat that a woman who contributes to the life of mankind by the occupation of motherhood is taking as high a place in the division of human labor as anyone else could take. If she is interested in the lives of her children and is paving the way for them to become fellow men, if she is spreading their interests and training them to cooperate, her work is so valuable that it can never be rightly rewarded. In our own culture the work of a mother is undervalued and often regarded as a not very attractive or estimable occupation. It is paid only indirectly and a woman who makes it her main occupation is generally placed in a position of economic dependence. The success of the family, however, rests equally upon the work of the mother and the work of the father. Whether the mother keeps house or works independently, her work as a mother does not play a lower role than the work of her husband.
A mother is the first influence in the development of her children's occupational interests. The efforts and training of the first four or five years of life are decisive for the child's main sphere of action in adult life. If ever I am called on for vocational guidance, I always ask how the individual began and what he was interested in during his first years. His memories of this period show conclusively what he has trained himself for most continuously: they reveal his prototype and his underlying scheme of apperception. To the importance of first memories I shall return later on.
The next step for training is made by the schools; and I believe that our schools now are giving more attention to the future occupation of the child, to training his hands, ears and eyes, his faculties and functions. Such training is as important as the teaching of special subjects. We should not forget, however, that the teaching of subjects is also important for the child's occupational development. In later life we often hear people say that they have forgotten the Latin or French which they learned at school; but, perhaps, all the same, it was not a mistake to teach these subjects. In the study of all these subjects, we have found, through the combined experience of the past, an excellent occasion to train all the functions of the mind. There are modern schools which pay much attention to craftsmanship and handiwork; and in this way, too, we can increase the experience of a child and raise his self-confidence.
A child's development is much simpler if he knows from his childhood onwards the occupation which he would like to take up in later life. If we ask children what they would like to be, most of them will give an answer. Their answers are not clearly considered; and when they say that they want to be aeroplane pilots or engine drivers they do not know why they are choosing this occupation. It is our task to recognize the underlying motives, to see the way they are striving, what is pushing them forward, where they are placed, their goal of superiority and how they feel they can make - it concrete. The answer they give shows us only one kind of occupation which seems to them to represent superiority; but from this occupation we can see also other opportunities for helping them to reach their goal.
A child of twelve or fourteen should already know much more of the occupation which he will follow; and I am always sorry to hear at this age that a child does not know what he wishes to be in later life. His apparent lack of ambition does not mean that he has no interest at all. He is probably extremely ambitious and not courageous enough to mention what his ambitions are. In such a case we must take pains to find out his chief interest and training. Some children, when they finish high school at the age of sixteen, are still unsettled over their future occupation.
Often they are brilliant pupils but have no idea of how their life will continue. These children we can recognize to be very ambitious but not really cooperative. They have not felt their way in the division of labor and they cannot find in time a concrete method of fulfilling their ambitions. It is thus an advantage to ask children early what their occupation is going to be; and I often put this question in schools so that the children are led to consider the point and cannot forget the problem or wish to hide their answer. I ask them also why they have selected this occupation and I am often told very revealing details. In a child's choice of an occ
upation we can observe his whole style of life. He is showing us the main direction of his striving and what he values most in life. We must let him value as he chooses; since we ourselves have no means of saying which occupation is higher and which is lower. If he really does his work and occupies himself in a contribution to others, he is on the same level of usefulness as anyone else. His only task is to train himself, try to support himself, and set his interest in the framework of the division of labor.
There are some people who could choose any occupation and never be satisfied. What they wish is not an occupation but an easy guarantee of superiority. They do not wish to meet the problems of life, since they feel that it is unfair of life to offer them problems at all. These, again, are the pampered children who wish to be supported by others. Perhaps a great majority of men and women are really interested in the direction in which they have trained themselves in the first four or five years and cannot forget these interests; but they have felt compelled by economic considerations or by the pressure of their parents to take a different direction and engage in an occupation which does not interest them. This is another sign of the importance of childhood training. If in a child's first memories we see an interest in visual things, we can conclude that he will be more apt for an occupation in which he can use his eyes. In vocational guidance, first memories should be considered very important. A child mentions impressions of someone talking to him, of the sound of the wind or of a bell ringing. We know that he is an acoustic type and we can guess that he might be suited for some profession connected with music. In other recollections we can see impressions of movement. These are individuals who demand more activity; perhaps they would be interested in occupation which demanded outside labor or travel.
One of the most frequent strivings is the attempt to excel other members of the family; and especially to go farther than the father or mother. This can be a very valuable striving; we are glad to see an advancement on the position of older generations and, to a certain degree, if a child wishes to surpass the achievements of his father in his own occupation, his father's experience can provide him with an excellent start. Often a child born into a family where the father was a policeman has the ambition of being a lawyer or a judge. If his father is employed in the office of a doctor, the child wants to be a doctor himself. If the father is a teacher, the child wants to be a professor at a university.
By watching children we can often see them training for an occupation in adult life. Sometimes, for example, a child wishes to be a teacher; and we can notice how he brings younger children together and plays school with them. The games of children can give us a hint of their interests. A girl who looks forward to being a mother will play with dolls and train herself to a greater interest in babies. This interest in training to take the role of a mother should be encouraged and we need not be afraid of giving little girls dolls to play with. Some people feel that if we give them dolls we are distracting them from reality; but in fact they are training themselves in identification and in fulfilling the tasks of a mother. It is valuable that they should begin so early in life; since if they came to train when it was too Tate, their interests would already have crystallized. Many children show great mechanical and technical interest; and this, too, is a promise of a fruitful occupation in later life if they can accomplish what they wish.
There are still other children who never wish to be placed in a leading position. Their chief interest is to find a leader to look up to, another child or adult to whom they can subordinate themselves. This is not a very favorable development and I should be pleased if we could decrease such submissive tendencies. If we cannot stop them, such children will be unable to take a leading Position in later life and of their own accord will chose positions where they have the tasks of a minor official, where their work is routine work and where everything which they should do is prescribed for them.
Children who meet the problem of sickness or death without preparation always remain with a great interest in these facts. They wish to be doctors, nurses or chemists. Their strivings, I believe, should be encouraged, since I have always found that children with such interests who became doctors began their training very early and had a great liking for their profession. Sometimes an experience of death can be compensated in another way. The child will have the ambition to survive death through artistic or literary creation; or he may become devoutly religious.
The mistaken training of avoiding an occupation, being distracted or lazy, also begins early in life. When we see such a child heading for difficulties in later life, we must find out the reasons for his mistake in a scientific way and try to correct him by scientific means. If we lived on a planet which offered us everything we needed without work, it would perhaps be a virtue to be lazy and a vice to be industrious. As far as we can understand from our relation to our own planet, earth, the logical answer to the problem of occupation, the only answer in accordance with common sense, is that we should work, cooperate and contribute. This has always been felt in the intuitions of mankind: we can see its necessity, now, from the scientific angle.
The training from early childhood has always been evident in geniuses; and I believe that the question of genius can throw light on the whole subject. Mankind only calls those individuals geniuses who have contributed much to the common welfare. We cannot imagine a genius who has left-no advantage to mankind behind him. The arts are the product of the most cooperative of all individuals, and the great geniuses of mankind have raised the whole level of our culture. Homer in his poems makes mention of only three colors; and these three had to serve for all discriminations. Doubtless at the time, people could notice more differences; but it was not necessary to name them, since the differences seemed so slight. Who has taught us to distinguish all the colors which we can now name? We must say that it is the work of artists and painters.
Composers have refined our hearing to an extraordinary degree. If we speak now in harmonious tones instead of in the rough tones of primitive mankind, it is the musicians who have taught us; it is they who have enriched our minds and taught us to train our functions. Who increased the depths of our feelings and taught us to speak better and to understand better? These were the poets. It is they who have enriched our language, made it more flexible and adapted it to all the purposes of life. There can be no question but that geniuses have been the most cooperative of all human beings. In some aspects of their behavior and their attitude we could perhaps not see their cooperative ability; but we can see it in the whole picture of their lives. It was not so easy for them to cooperate as for others. They went a difficult way and they had many obstacles to contend with. Often they started with gravely imperfect organs. In almost all outstanding people we find some organ imperfection; and we gather the impression that they were sorely confronted at the beginning of life but struggled and overcame their difficulties. We can notice especially how early they fixed their interests and how hard they trained themselves in their childhood. They sharpened their senses, so that they could make contact with the problems of the world and understand them. From this early training we can conclude that their art and their genius was their own creation, not an undeserved gift of nature or inheritance. They strove and we are blessed.
This early striving is the best foundation for later success. Suppose we have a girl of three or four who has been left alone. She begins to sew a hat for her doll. When we see her at work we tell her what a nice hat it is and suggest how it could be made still better. The little girl is encouraged and stimulated. She increases her strivings and her skill. But suppose we had said, “Put that needle down! You will hurt yourself. There's no need for you to make a hat at all. We'll go out and buy you a far nicer one." She would give up her strivings. If we compared the two girls in later life we should find that the first had developed her artistic taste and was interested in working: the second would not know what to do with herself and she would think that she could always buy better things than she could m
ake.
If the value of money is overstressed in family life, the children will be tempted to look at the problem of occupation only in the light of the money they can make. This is a great mistake; for such a child does not follow an interest in which he contributes to mankind. That everyone should earn his living is a truth; and it is true, also, that we find people who neglect this point and make themselves a charge on others. But if a child is only interested in making money he can easily lose the path of cooperation and look only after his own advantages. If "to make money" is his only goal and no social interest is bound up with it, there is no possible reason why he should not make money by robbing and swindling other people. Even if the position is not so extreme but there is only a small degree of social interest combined with the goal, the individual may make plenty of money but his activities will not be of much advantage to his fellows. In our complicated times, it is possible to be successful along these lines and to become rich. Even a mistaken way may sometimes seem to be successful in one point. We need not be astonished; and we cannot hold out a promise that air individual who goes through life with the right attitude will meet immediate success. We can promise, however, that he will keep his courage and will not lose his self-esteem.
An occupation can sometimes be used to evade and be made into an excuse for evading the problems of society and love. Very often in our social life an exaggeration of activity in business can be chosen as a means to get rid .of the problem of love and marriage. Sometimes we find it used as an excuse for failure. A man devotes himself furiously to his business, and thinks, “I have no time to spare for my marriage, and so I am not responsible for its unhappiness." It is especially frequent amongst neurotics that these two problems of society and love are the problems that they try to evade. They make no approach to the other sex or they make wrong approaches. They have no friends and they do not interest themselves in other people. But they are occupied day and night with their business. They think of it and dream of it in bed. They throw themselves into a tension; and in their tension the neurotic Symptom appears; stomach irritation or some such trouble. They feel now that their stomach trouble excuses them from meeting the problems of society and love. In other cases the man is always changing his occupation. He can always think of an occupation which would suit him better. In the end it appears that he is not occupied at all; he is always vacillating from one thing to another.