"Work is often the father of pleasure."--Voltaire
Hard work can often be unpleasant, and many people believe it is something to be avoided whenever possible. But many people find happiness in their work. If we want to achieve anything of value in this life we must set goals and work to attain these goals. For most of us, life would be very empty without meaningful work. William Penn wrote, "Love labor....It is wholesome for thy body and good for thy mind." Indeed it is. It is probably not possible to experience long-term health and happiness without a commitment to work.
There is no virtue in working just for the sake of working. The virtue comes from doing meaningful and productive work. Theodore Roosevelt said, "Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing." There is much such work to be done. Fortunately, we differ in our attitudes toward various types of work. What might be distasteful work for one person may be play for somebody else. Fortunate are those of us who are able to spend our lives doing what we consider to be meaningful work, because doing worthwhile work is perhaps one of the greatest uses of our lives.
George Bernard Shaw wrote, "The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation." In a similar tone, Thomas Carlyle said, "Work is the grand cure of all the maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind." Carlyle may have gone a bit far with this statement, but it is hard to overstate the importance of meaningful work in our lives.
One of our most basic needs is to feel useful and needed, and many of us can find purpose in our chosen work. If we are unable to earn a living at the kind of work we most want to do, then we can earn our living doing something else and spend our spare time doing what we really want to do. One of the greatest pleasures in life is to set a major goal, work very hard toward accomplishing that goal, and finally be able to harvest the fruits of our labor.
The world does not owe us a living. We must work for the things we want to get out of life. We need opportunity but, once given the opportunity, it is pretty much up to us to work toward the goals that are most meaningful to us. For some, it may be creating a great work of art or rising to a particular level in a career. For others, it may be doing the best job possible at parenting our children or at cultivating friendships. Voltaire was right. Work is very often the father of pleasure.
Copyright 2014 Allen W. Smith
TB—78—Posted 06/15/2014
Still, most of my neighbors opted for hiring landscaping and lawn services to do the work. Generally, their yards were converted to looking like institutions and they got no exercise or sunshine. I feel sorry for them. They don't know the pleasure of physical work anymore.
Ron