Work is a Four Letter Word that Doesn’t have to be Negative
Doing work that I love is mere play to my soul.
As a young child, I remember being with a small group of other children discussing what our fathers did for “work.” Our immature brains came to the conclusion that work was not a good thing. We were all children of blue collar laborers who, at the end of their long and arduous work days, were too exhausted, too discouraged and just plain dirty to experience life beyond their daily toils.
They would bath, eat dinner, sit in front of the television, glance at the newspaper, and fall asleep in their chairs. And get up again the next day and do it all over again.
Our playful hearts were not ready to sacrifice the joy of living to the tedium of “working.”
As young girls, our main hope then was to marry well enough to be able to settle into the role of mother and housewife and escape the exhausting world of work required of our fathers in order to keep a roof over the heads of his family and sufficient food on the table. For some reason, we saw this option as optimal.
Fast forward to today. Much (thank goodness!) has changed.
Thanks to the soul-draining efforts of my blue collar father, I was able to go to college and begin the journey of expanded options in my lifetime. I won’t pretend that every function I have performed in my work-a-day world was fulfilling and meaningful — not by a long shot.
But his struggles opened doors for me that gave my life something I don’t think he ever had — options and the ability to make choices and changes. A vision for a bigger, bolder future that he hoped to give to his children.
I was always traditionally employed after my college years ended. I rose to the challenge of a variety of jobs with the same employer. In time, I came to understand and appreciate the many skills, talents and abilities I possessed and started to use those to pursue other “work” that brought me a new level of fulfillment and that gave me a reason to get up each and every morning.
To this day, I work, but not in the same way my father worked. No, I work because that is the essence of my heart and soul. I don’t work to keep a roof over my head, my physical needs are well met at this time. I work because I have something to give back to the world. I work because I have something to give of myself and to myself.
I work because I have found within me an admittedly small reservoir of talent and skill that I feel compelled to express and share. I work because, from now until the day I die, I want to give that part of my heart and soul that maybe, in some small way, might give the world something it needs, something that I have and would be ashamed to squander.
I work because my father, somewhere in his heart of hearts, always believed in giving his children the reality of a dream he held but knew could not be personally realized in his lifetime.
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