IELTS Sample Essay 14 – Work to Live or Live to Work

It is often said that we should work to live, not live to work. Discuss both points of view and give your own opinion.

I think that the answer is obvious if the question is stated this way. Of course, we do not live to work. However, there are other sides of the balance between work and life that are not so simple. As a result, those who defined their work as the main part of their life can have a much happier life than those who try to put their life first.

One reason is that the great part of the life consists of work anyway. We are awake about 16 hours per day, and from 8 to 10 of them, including commuting time, we spend on our work. Even those who selected the ‘work to live’ conception must do that. Therefore, work constitutes more than half of our life, and it will be a good idea to like the work because then you will not spend this half of your life waiting until it is over.

Secondly, there are different jobs, and in every business there are different positions. Some of those positions are boring and take more time, but some of them are more interesting and allow a great deal of freedom for the person in charge. The former more often go to the people who take their jobs very seriously, and eventually they have more freedom, more time and more possibilities in their lives.

To sum up, stating that we should work to live, you can lose too many things: time, freedom and money that give you possibilities. Therefore, it is better to look for an interesting job and make it a more enjoyable part of the life.