Just a common laborer….not so! You are an important part in the mechanization of making good things!
You are only a common laborer if what you do doesn’t matter to you or anyone else. Labor is good if it serves a good purpose, therefore making your work valuable and worthwhile.
If the only important task was thinking up an idea…and a good idea at that…but there was no one to design, make and develop it, what good would it be? It takes hands to turn the idea into a reality. We are a hands-on people…absolutely no shame in that.
We need to be doing things, we need to be working at something, and so do our kids. We need to find something interesting to us and make it, build it, improve it, mess with it and see what happens. The brain power exerted is good for us. We need to be challenged to keep growing.
Whether you are raking someone’s lawn for a living, blowing the leaves, cutting the grass…remember all labor is good if you do it well. The same is true for any task, painting the room, cooking a recipe, cleaning the bathroom, (I have heard some say, “I don’t clean bathrooms”.) I say if you use it you clean it. Again, there is a certain pride well earned from a job well done. Don’t despise the work, just do it and marvel at the result!
There is no job ‘beneath our dignity’. I think it makes you stand out as a stronger, better person because you do the ‘lesser’ jobs best!
Sometimes we have to redirect our pride from, ‘I don’t do that type work‘ to ‘Look how good I did that work’! We can help redirect other’s thoughts about the dignity of work and labor.
Do I have a piece of work I need to think more highly of myself as I perform it?
Can I encourage someone else today of the value of their labor?
I will think differently about what I do. My labor is valuable. There is no shame.
Mrs. Goodfinder 