Work, Work, Work

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How many times do you talk to a buddy, wondering where they've been and why you haven't got together, and they say something like:

"Work has just been crazy. I don't have any time to myself. I hate my job!"

I'm 48. I've been gainfully employed since I was 14. The first job was on a farm. From their a grocery store. Pulled some wires for a telephone company. Did hard labor as a union guy. A lot of years of that.

Work was just crazy.

There were jobs I really hated.

I wrote for a magazine for awhile.

I hated that one. No one tells me what to write. I hate neck ties.

Always busy. So busy.

"Work is crazy."

There have been plenty of Sunday nights when I've laid there thinking, "Damn, I wish I had one more day."

But I often think of one thing I read a long time ago.

Generations come and go, but it makes no difference. The sun rises and sets and hurries around to rise again. The wind blows south and north, here and there, twisting back and forth, getting nowhere. The rivers run into the sea, but the sea is never full; and the water returns again to the rivers, and flows again to the sea…
Everything is unutterably weary and tiresome. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied; no matter how much we hear, we are not content. So I saw that there is nothing better for men than that they should be happy in their work, for that is what they are here for, and no one can bring them back to life to enjoy what will be in the future. So let them enjoy it now. -Ecclesiastes-


And through the years I've been able to shoot up and out of bed, believing that I am a mere link in a chain, just making my mark in the way that is best suited for my talents.

"Just work hard," I tell my kids.

"All I ask is that you work as hard as you can," I've mentioned to co-workers.

We will all make mistakes.

We'll all have really bad days.

Yet in the end, as I look back, there's just one thing I want people to realize.

"He worked hard."

"For what he believed in."

"He enjoyed it."

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