“What do you think work is?” a fan wrote in a mail to ex-fashion designer Emma. This was a question Emma was ready for. Without hesitation, she picked up her black fountain pen and wrote back:

According to the dictionary, work is an “activity involving mental or physical effort in order to achieve a purpose or result,” but this definition of work does not do justice for me.

My foster parents never understood why I was giving up my glamorous and lucrative career as a fashion designer to start up an orphanage. They felt I was making a mistake and would regret giving up my established business.

“It’s going to be a lot of hard work, with very little reward,” they tried to explain to me patiently. What they did not understand was that starting up a free school for poor students was for me the most fulfilling and gratifying experience possible.

For me it did not involve any effort to start a school and help poor children find their way in life, in fact it involved effort not to do so. The smile on Saira’s face as I gave her a brand-new math book and introduced her to the world of numbers was more rewarding than all the profit from selling my best designer outfit.

I would go to bed at night because my body needed rest, but my soul would be elsewhere, wanting to do more “work.” Was this work or play, or something divine that nourished my being as I dreamt of the next day’s tasks?

I grew up in an orphanage, in terrible conditions that I prefer not to dwell on. I was made to work there, and it was work indeed. I had the task of meeting rich donors and telling them how much the kids loved them and how much they would value the money that they donated. We valued smiles, happiness and just plain good fun and nothing else.

I understood the pain of those who lived in orphanages, because I had been there and done that. I do not think that I chose my work; I do not think I could have chosen not to start an orphanage. I believe it was my duty to start an orphanage, a place that would be like a real home to the children who lived in it.

Fashion designing was never the work that I enjoyed, it wasn’t the work that felt gratifying, and I felt that was wrong. Work should be fulfilling, one should be passionate about their work.

I work with the orphans in my orphanage, all day, along with two dear friends. We are often asked “Do you never get tired of your work?”

And my answer is always “No! Quite to the contrary. My work rejuvenates me.”

How can I ever be tired of my work? Helping children learn and looking after them does not tire me. Instead, it gives me energy. It gives me hope. And to not help these poor, deserving children would be a death sentence to me. In fact, it is when I am not helping children to aspire and to grow that I feel tried, as if a part of me has been taken away.

Work for me is not something that requires “mental or physical effort to achieve a result or purpose”, but something that does not require effort; something that comes naturally and energises the soul.

Published in Dawn, Young World, March 2nd, 2024