WORK: Another Point of View, by John Rose
Looking at life as a great feast, work is the bread and meat and life’s little pleasures are the desserts. Someone coined that or a similar phrase long before I could read and write; however, I failed to grasp the true meaning the first time around. The longer I live the more I recognize the graphics of work on everything that is good in life.
The rewards in life that provide total fulfillment are derived from helping others. When a person can elevate another human to a higher plane, that feeling is life’s greatest reward. The educator plants the seeds of knowledge then, from life’s front row, witnesses the teachings sprout and grow within the student as a seedling then blossom into a career to bear fruit as an adult. It is truly a wonderful career when it is your job to help others. “How Sweet It Is!”
The professional educator does not have a monopoly on such rewards as many jobs have equally rewarding attributes. Each of us has to find the way of contributing to the task to be accomplished thereby creating his or her own reward. There are people working in every profession, including the field of education, that work all their lives, who never awaken to the fact that their life’s work has a reward other than the paycheck…
Oh, what a PITY!
It is shallow thinking that a life’s work can be measured on the financial scale. Yes, we are all guilty of looking at the car, the house, how loudly we pray in public or “influence peddling” in the community, and only a few will ever see beyond the unshined shoes! Yes, we pray for our brother’s success, just as long as that success is short of our own. Real love is lifting your neighbor by providing a shoulder to stand on, not to cry on!
Webster invented the word “pity” for the person who hates to work. The greatest tragedy in life is the waste of one’s mind and body by idleness. It is a “pity” to watch the deterioration of a man, family, and sometimes the entire community for lack of opportunity or motivation to work. Another “pity” is the fact that we have to search to find those who do assist the elderly, homeless, needy neighbors and friends who are unable to work.
Work is the key to everything in life: physical and mental, love and marriage, peace of mind, happiness, joy of living, success or failure in business or as a person. The positive work ethic belongs to the person who works everyday for the love of the task being accomplished! The job or task doesn’t matter, it is the love of the accomplishment that makes the difference.
Your work should provide a lifetime high! The inner-self will produce the adrenaline for a personal high from a job well done. The person that attains a “self-high” will never need artificial stimuli of drugs.
Love of one’s work stimulates self-worth while providing the correct mental attitude for a lifetime of simple wonderful pleasures and make life the bountiful feast that it can be, like: watching the fluffy white clouds float by on a hot summer day, remembering your first love, listening to the murmur of a babbling little brook, holding your first born child, watching the hummingbird darting in and out of the flowers, listening to the children laugh as they play, seeing a mother’s tears of joy as her baby graduates from college, the screams of joy when the home team wins…and my life’s work is all worthwhile when I see everyone standing at attention for the National Anthem! My chest swells with pride of achievement in just being a part of this wonderful country and I say a heartfelt prayer for those who died in their effort to guarantee each of us as an American the right and opportunity to…WORK…
God Bless America And Its Workers