Christopher Wong Michaelson presents Is Your Work Worth It?

What is work that’s worth doing in a life worth living? A revealing exploration of the questions we ask and the stories we tell about our work.

According to recent studies, barely a third of American workers feel engaged at work, and for many people around the world, happiness is lowest when earning power is highest. After a global pandemic that changed why, how, and what people do for a living, many workers find themselves wondering what makes their daily routine worthwhile.

In Is Your Work Worth It?, two professors – a philosopher and organizational psychologist – investigate the purpose of work and its value in our lives. The book explores vital questions, such as:

Should you work for love or money?
When and how much should you work?
What would make life worth living in a world without work?
What kind of mark will your work leave on the world?
This essential book combines inspiring and harrowing stories of real people with recent scholarship, ancient wisdom, arts, and literature to help us clarify what worthy work looks like, what tradeoffs are acceptable to pursue it, and what our work can contribute to society.

Christopher Wong Michaelson is a humanities scholar who teaches in business schools at the University of St. Thomas and NYU; a critic of capitalism who believes business can and often does make the world better; a tenured professor with 25 years of experience working with business leaders; a philosopher who has called Leo Tolstoy the first moral psychologist and Mary Shelley the first AI ethicist; an ivory tower scholar who has written about love in The New York Times, fantasy football in The Athletic, religion in The Forward, and political humor in McSweeney’s; an ethics expert who has tantrums on the tennis court; an occasional podcaster; a half-Chinese Jew who teaches in a Catholic institution; a husband and father who sometimes acts like a child; and a reluctant workaholic whose new book (with Jennifer Tosti-Kharas), Is Your Work Worth It? (forthcoming from PublicAffairs), examines the place and priority of work worth doing in a life worth living.

Dennis Curley is a vocalist, pianist, songwriter/composer, music director, producer and arranger. He has composed music for Vampires! Horror!, Love After Hours, four shows in the Church Basement Ladies series, U Betcha, Psych 101, and Pride and Plot of Pointlessness. Dennis is the arranger of Schoolhouse Rock Live! and Schoolhouse Rock Live Too! (both published by MTI). He has served as musical director for local and national productions of all of the Church Basement Ladies shows (Troupe America), Beautiful Thing (Theater Latté Da), A Sea-doo Named Desire (Brave New Workshop) and Legendary Ladies of Country (Table Salt Productions). He serves as improv pianist and music director for The Theater of Public Policy; he tours the Upper Midwest with Country Roads: Dennis Curley Sings the Music of John Denver and Parrothead Paradise (a tribute to the music of Jimmy Buffett); he is a co-founder and executive producer of Table Salt Productions (TableSaltProductions.com); and he and all of his shows can be found on the web at DennisCurley.com.