Poisoned Bread

Those who work in something they don’t enjoy, even if they work all day, are unemployed. They betray themselves by taking poisoned and stolen bread to their homes. -Facundo Cabral

This phrase is a quote from Facundo Cabral, a folk singer that lived an extraordinary life of profound pain and spiritual joy. For me, Cabral is one of the artists that captures South American popular wisdom, a way of seeing life that is hard to explain through the barrier of culture and language, and that can we can only fully understand through music.

In this short article, I want to explain this quote by Cabral and, hopefully, open a window to some simple, yet powerful lessons.

Unemployed with a job

When we work on something we don’t love, that we’d rather not be doing, we’re fundamentally unemployed. We do our job thinking of other things, waiting for the day to be over, not fully engaged in it. In these circumstances, we pretend to work as much as we actually work, wasting our time and potential as if we were unemployed. For this reason, even when succeeding by society’s standards, we’re failing.

Poisoned bread

When we’re in this situation — working on something we don’t want to — the livelihood we provide to our families is poisoned. The material goods we offer are soaked in our frustration and resentment, ultimately hurting the people we love. All I can say is don’t do this to yourself; don’t do this to your children.

Stolen bread

Finally, when we earn our living working hard on something we don’t enjoy, we’re living on stolen bread. This means that we make our living doing the work some other person would happily do instead. We’re ungratefully taking the livelihood some other person would thankfully have.