A series on vocation, the dignity of labor, and the misconceptions that prevent us from valuing all work.
I used to direct a justice education program at the University of Notre Dame, which was part of a large institute that offered a wide array of opportunities for students to bring their academic, professional, and personal passions into alignment and to serve the common good. Part of what made this program special was the large cohort of student leaders with whom we worked each year. Assigned to a small group of their peers, these student leaders led classroom discussions, experiential learning activities, and personal reflections that connected students to many different social issues. Our center attracted students who wanted to channel their concerns for vulnerable and marginalized populations and make a difference in the world.
During one of our weekly late-night training sessions, we were reflecting on the now famous line from Bryan Stevenson that “each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve done.” My students embraced Stevenson’s thinking and his argument that a person’s identity is not defined by any particular failure. As he shows, to conflate identity and the blemishes on someone’s record is dehumanizing. It is why, in justice education, we try to identify and dismantle ways that even our language is demeaning. It is why we resist labels like “felons,” “illegals,” or (from even longer ago) “superpredators.” Stevenson helps us see that we must stand against these labels because what a person does and who a person is are not the same. Doing so reflects our ultimate commitment to human dignity.
This idea ought to be a central precept in any justice-oriented worldview, and it’s possibly one of the most important principles that could transform how society views and responds to the most vulnerable people in our world. Students found this moral vision compelling and were primed to get behind it.
But then, the conversation took a turn as we explored their own identities and their successes. Why might this shift have been a problem? When we resist conflating identity and action and commit to a vision of human dignity, we must be equally committed to this idea in the other direction. In other words, I can’t truly believe that every person is more than the worst thing they’ve done if I simultaneously build a personal identity—as many of our students do—on a track record of positive achievements.
We know that people tend to live into the labels that they are assigned. And we reject labels that increase stigma because they contribute to conditions that diminish human flourishing. I find it curious, though, that we don’t apply the same logic to labels with more positive connotations, like CEO, valedictorian, or MVP. In such cases we are happy to start a sentence, “I am a _____,” or, “You are a _____.” These labels are the ones that my students tend to embrace. They are tempted not only to celebrate such successful roles, but they are also often rewarded for these kinds of achievements in a way that externally validates their sense of self and identity. Getting the internship, the job offer, or the fellowship—or having a title or being a leader—these accomplishments are like catnip to students who study in high pressure campus cultures where we often laud and celebrate standing out from the crowd.
But if our students develop their sense of self and self-worth based on their capacity to achieve, what happens when they struggle or fail, as they will inevitably? In my experience, negative labels aren’t the only things that impede human flourishing, and I would argue that externally validated identities are shipwrecks waiting to happen.
Identity formation is a tricky thing, and a somewhat slippery concept, but can you imagine how freeing it might be for a student trapped in achievement culture to believe truly that their inherent dignity as a human being was not contingent on their track record of success? To believe that the drive to achieve or to stand out from the crowd does not actually change their worth, because they have borne and will always bear the same weight of glory as everyone else?
But our social norms can interfere with students’ ability to believe in this possibility; even as embracing their inherent dignity can be freeing for many of them, it is also immensely challenging. Many students want to achieve—they want to stand out and brandish a slate of gold stars. For all the ways in which that might be a good thing—that is, doing one’s best, having goals, and fostering healthy aspiration are important, after all—our devotion to achievement can also be rooted in other, less virtuous, desires. The desire to win. The desire to advance. The desire for upward mobility. The desire to climb the social hierarchies that are unspoken, but which speak loudly, to all our students.
Our students explore and discern their vocations within these very real hierarchies of labor that value only certain types of jobs. We’d be lying if we didn’t admit that society tells a story to our students (and to us, too) that certain types of jobs matter and others really don’t much at all. This story is reinforced by different levels of compensation or notoriety, as well as affirmation that workplaces, our communities, and even our alumni offices grant different jobs. There is a relatively narrow menu of careers that will get you on any community’s “30 under 30” list. Our esteem and respect for certain types of labor is socially conditioned, and we can easily equate identity and labor, playing comparison games that we participate in, often inadvertently, to feel one step ahead.
To the extent that our vocational discernment programs can offer a serious critique of achievement culture and its effects, there is a real opportunity to help students discern their meaning and purpose and do so in ways that also reflect the universal dignity of the human person and a more expansive vision of the dignity of all labor. Students who want to impact the world for good, but who still operate within the established norms of the social hierarchy of labor, will always find themselves at a distance from folks who live on the social and economic margins of our communities.
I believe we can bridge this divide by injecting a robust vision for the dignity of labor into our vocation and formation programs. When we start with the dignity of labor and affirm the full humanity of all workers, we demonstrate an explicit commitment to human dignity that challenges conventional ways that we value (or don’t) work. If we begin with these convictions, then the type of job one does cannot be a wedge of differentiation in the process of identity formation. Valuing all labor helps us challenge achievement culture and offer students a different way of thinking about the pursuit of purpose through their work.
Adam Gustine is an associate director at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Ethics and the Common Good where he directs the program in virtue ethics, education, and formation. He has worked in a variety of faith-based and denominational leadership contexts within higher education. He is the author of Becoming a Just Church: Cultivating Communities of God’s Shalom and co-author of Ecosystems of Jubilee: Economic Ethics for the Neighborhood. His newest book, A Working Theology of Labor: Justice, Dignity, and the Common Good (Baker Academic) comes out in October 2026. For more posts by Adam, click here.