On this Labor Day in the United States, I celebrate work and express thanksgiving for the ability I have to do the work that I love.
Labor Day Essay: An Ode To Work
Labor Day as a nationwide celebration dates back to 1894; a day of recognition for workers and their contribution to society. A day off to celebrate and recognize hard work as a cornerstone of our nation is fitting and I am thankful today that the sacrifice and perseverance of those who have gone before me have helped to foster the frankly incredible opportunities so many of us enjoy today, especially when compared to the thousands of years and hundreds of generations that have preceded us.
When I hear people boast about their own hard work being the reason for their financial success, I laugh. Hard work does matter and matters greatly: the great inventions and ideas that have transformed our society do not spontaneously generate. Yet so much of our innovation is built upon the innovation of the past. The whole internet generation of work, including this blog, is made possible because of a world wide web that preceded it. Without the infrastructure of the past, we could not enjoy the innovation of the present and the promise of the future.
One of the greatest gifts of life is when you can live to work rather than work to live. This is much easier for some than others, but it is a state of consciousness, a resolution, that we can hold firm. I view work as a gift from God, not as a curse, and the value of hard work can be seen on a personal level and on an aggregate level through a flourishing society.
I am so grateful for the journey I have taken, even through the many dangers, toils, and snares I have hit over the years. Each day I hope to learn a little bit more; to be more kind, empathetic, and loving, but also to be more discerning, shrewd, and competent. The amazing thing about work is that we can grow to love it by becoming good at what we do. This is the testimony of so many; what seems a horrific burden can become a fulfilling joy as skill is developed over time.
CONCLUSION
I am thankful for work today. I am thankful that we can rest from our work, even though our work is never done. It is a great joy to spend a portion of each day writing this blog and I am deeply grateful for the interactions with you, dear readers, over the years, and look forward to many more years to come. Happy Labor Day.
top image: “Chicago: Epoch of a Great City” WPA mural by Harry Sternberg (1937)
bottom image: WPA mural by Winold Reiss found in Cincinnati Union Terminal
This essay appears annually on Labor Day on Live And Let’s Fly
Maybe Labor Day will trigger lazy people to move their ass and get back to work again instead of sitting at home waiting for the Government to take care of them.
No way man. I got that $1200 2 years ago and I got me a house and a Lambo. I figure that $1200 will carry me 30 more years until I can collect social security. Thanks to that $1200 my grandkid’s grandkids will never have to work!
Gtfoh
And you didn’t have a student loan since you clearly never studied. Now you have one.
I should have been in congress so I could get a PPP loan for no reason then get it forgiven. Oh I forgot, those handout are OK because they are already rich
My mortgage self-identifies as a student loan.
Sigh. Sorry for the trolls, thanks for a heartfelt note, @Matthew.
For the millions of workers in the service/hospitality/labor sectors, Labor Day is meaningless. It’s a Monday just like any other Monday.
I have to get up early every day and start working at 8:00 AM. My bartender gets to sleep in late every day. That’s not fair. If I have to get up at 8:00, every single other member of society should have to as well.
Good message, Matthew. I constantly see these articles in my newsfeed about (usually younger people) “quiet quitting” and indignant over being expected to work one minute past when they’re supposed to, even when salaried. I have to shake my head and wonder whether they think the company works for them instead of the other way around, and whether they’ll figure out that success comes with effort. Honestly, I hope they do – not just for them, but for our future as a society.
Boy, do I feel like an old man….
It’s not about being indignant about being asked to work one extra minute, it’s about realizing that life outside of work is more important. I have worked with a bunch of old timers that have missed big milestones with their kids or have lost marriages because they spent too much time at work. F**k. That.
We all end up in the same place in the end, so why should I sacrifice priceless memories to give some guy an extra vacation home while hoping he gives me an extra few grand. You can’t get back your youth so I say work just hard enough to be comfortable, and enjoy the evening.
Billy Bob, I admit everyone’s got their own reasons and priorities, and you have to find balance (and where that balance is will be different for each individual). However, it seems like it’s increasingly the case among the younger generation that everything is about “I’m doing you a favor by working” and not willing to put in some extra effort.
Hey, maybe I’m just getting an inordinate number of these articles in my newsfeed, but I also see it in the office. I directly supervise a staff of 20, and am administratively responsible for a staff of 112. It’s no where near out of control, but I am seeing that attitude more and more, and at some point I can see it causing an issue with productivity or causing a rift between those employees and those who really try.
And I know you explained your personal reasoning, and that’s fine, I respect it, but there are indeed those who are indignant at being asked to help one extra minute. It’s all about how you handle yourself with others.
I’m reminded of one of my first few jobs when I was 19 and it was minimum wage and the work was awful. It felt in some ways worse than slavery because at least as a slave, I wasn’t voluntarily going somewhere to be exploited. After that, I had a strong “work” ethic that I didn’t do anything unless it was ‘easy’ or enjoyable work or it paid very well (or both!) and if not, I’d figure out a way to get the government to foot the bill. There’s several ways to do that: Be a student, for example, or know how to get all the welfare benefits. Many CEO’s are also welfare recipients in the sense of special tax breaks they get via their paid lobbyists and such. The majority of the welfare class are actually the decedents of “indentured servants” immigrants who “paid their dues” and then when they qualified for the benefits, they came to the same conclusion I did.
If you come across a guy or gal working checkout to barely live in a hovel, you should kneel down and kiss the fanny for showing up for work when so few members of society respect them. I am eternally grateful to the people who have a work ethic even if they get little respect or pay because they’re “better” than me, in that respect. As COVID showed, we’d all starve to death in a matter of days without them.
Regarding the “lazy” youngsters: The boomers took it for granted they could earn enough money with the minimum wage of that era to pay for a community college tuition (or even a state school) and then buy a home and have that paid off in 15 years. Jack Welch came out with “stacked ranking” which is the idea that there is ZERO company loyalty to their employees and they fire 20% of the workforce disrupting peoples’ lives every 2 years to drive the serfs to work harder. So the ONLY work that matters is what your boss sees in that case. Again, I learned the lesson that if the company loses a million bucks because I didn’t work OT on something nobody knew about, well, they wouldn’t care about that as much as kissing the boss’s tukas. Get it?
In a few decades, AI may make most of us obsolete except for those in the investment class who own the AI’s. What will they do with the “excess humanity’ then?
Yeah, no, I don’t really feel like picking up that Teams call at 5:07 pm, even though I am “salaried.” And no, I’m not checking work emails while I’m in a national park om PTO (I used to, now I don’t)
I’ve worked with enough Swiss and Germans to appreciate their work habits, and realize that the project, or the company, is not going to fall apart if I don’t pick up your 5:01pm call.
I don’t dream of labor.
The chance to be exploited in a long-term job is now experienced as a privilege. – Slavoj Žižek
What an excellent post. Thank you, Matt!
Colossians 3:23-24
Do you ever plan to enter into the legal field or is that something you decided not to pursue after law school?
I do legal work.
I’m afraid you need to spend more time in your Bible, Matthew. Work is a curse (see Genesis). And the pursuit work is meaningless. It’s like you’ve never even read the book of Ecclesiastes. Do better!
The ground is cursed, not work. Man’s prelapsarian role was to garden (tend, subdue), which was work.
Ecclesiastes is a beautiful book, but it means more than you think. Do not neglect Proverbs 13:22 and 2 Timothy 2:6-7.
Actually, Andy K, you need to go back and re-read the Bible. Work existed before the curse – see Genesis 2:15. “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”
Toil came after the fall and was part of the curse in Genesis 3.
Thank you Matthew for working and making this interesting space.