A hard days work

I once knew this old man named Roy who lived alone, no kids or wife, he was perhaps the most happy person I have ever met. He was a devout Christian. And quoted what scripture he could remember to me and asked often if I was keeping up with my prayers. Roy was always good at helping others with their walk with Christ.

Roy described to me one day the work his mother used to do when he was a child: laundry on Monday washing all the clothes by hand, milking the cows and butter making on Tuesday churning the cream again by hand. Wednesday was a day at the market picking vegetables and fruits to carry home in baskets and a hand drawn cart, some very heavy hauling, yet he described this all as if it were great fun, I told him it sounded like a lot of hard work and he assured me it was “no one ever told us” he said with a sparkle in his eye. 

Told you what? I asked he smiled and replied “no one ever told us work was a bad thing!”  he went on to explain that most of us young folks never did seem to understand that work, good honest hard work, can be and actually is fun and fulfilling to do.  Today work is a bad thing, a dirty word, something to get out of, to say that a device or invention is labor saving is regarded as the highest praise, but no one ever stops to realize that labor and work just might have been enjoyable.  

Today we live in what I call a push button world. Smart phones and computers making the mundane task of writing a letter or dialing a number from a phonebook a thing of the past. We all fall prey to the marketing establishment of the major corporations, “Needing” a newer better product every 6 months to a year. The techno gizmos available to us is astounding.

I found myself dumbfounded just the other night as I was suddenly overcome with the desire to eat pizza, I found myself looking up the nearest pizza joint on my iPhone and starting to call when I stopped myself. I was going to go to bed in about an hour, I had a good meal about 2 hours ago, I don’t really like home delivered pizza it’s greasy and expensive, I wasn’t really hungry. What had happened? I remember the pizza commercial I saw earlier in the day and had a moment of mental playback, the happy customers the piping hot delivered pizza, I wanted to be happy like them but did I need it? 

Therein lies the problem our wants verses our needs, Roy always asked me if I wanted it or if I needed it when I told him about my new phone or desire to eat out at a restaurant. I would sheepishly grin and say it was a want and not a need. The marketing media moguls want to feed us our desires as needs when they really are wants, and hard work, well that’s for suckers who can’t get the latest labor saving gizmo. I think I want to be more like Roy, enjoying a days work and reaping the benefits of what I need and not just what I want