Most of us have a hard time defining why we are passionate about the things that we are passionate about. For those in the skilled trades, it often has something to do with the rewards of working with your hands, the intellectual stimulation of solving practical design challenges and seeing the tangible results of your labor at the end of the day.
The unfortunate reality, however, is that our educational system often leads students to believe that the skilled trades exist as career options for those students who can’t get admitted a traditional university.
If ever there was someone to put this myth to rest, it might be Matthew Crawford. With a PhD in political philosophy, Crawford quit his job as the executive director of a Washington D.C. think tank to open a vintage motorcycle repair shop.
Crawford discusses the satisfaction and fulfillment that he finds working with his hands and his mind to repair old motorcycles in his new book, “Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work.”
In a recent New York Times article, Crawford wrote:
The trades suffer from low prestige, and I believe this is based on a simple mistake. Because the work is dirty, many people assume it is also stupid. This is not my experience … I have found the satisfactions of the work to be very much bound up with the intellectual challenges it presents. And yet my decision to go into this line of work is a choice that seems to perplex many people.
Crawford’s experience seems to echo that of many people who enter the skilled trades not out of a lack of options, but out of a passion for the work.
Will we ever reach the point where the skilled trades are appropriately recognized for the intellectual challenges they offer? Do you know someone who quit their ‘white collar’ job to work in a ‘blue collar’ trade? Share your thoughts on these subjects by posting a comment below.
