WORK ETHIC

Sometimes, since becoming an old fogey, I wonder if the next generation will "tow the mark" around working. So many are unengaged either through intergenerational poverty, video/drug addiction or a sense of entitlement, or vast unemployment. Yesterday I worked hard in our yard, loving every minute of it because I was using my body in strong ways and could look back on the improvements.

Working was an assumption of my generation because our parents bit the bullet and lived through the depression, so happy to have employment when it arrived again. We were raised assuming work meant increasing wealth, and all the privileges that would afford: health care, safe cars, owning homes, college education for our children. Sadly, some of that simply won't be available to our grandchildren; and some won't buy into it.

I was waiting for an appointment at a local very small-town high school, gazing upon the pictures of the graduates of 1925 from that very school. They were OLD teenagers, practiced in dawn-risings for chores, weekends of haying, tending animals without vacations, harsh discipline. Their serious faces gazed out as if stepping into the prison of adult life with little to hope for. They went on to build, farm, labor endlessly in cities and on farms, giving us their life force for capitalism.

Our teens are different. Some are lit on fire with enthusiasm about their futures. I am endlessly excited to be around them. But they will be hauling millions of their peers along who are afraid or unable to invest in themselves or their future. The motivated ones will be paying the medical, utility, transportation and infrastructure bills for the others.

The joy of work, of engagement, of creativity lies at the root of the work ethic. I have had numerous jobs begging for all three: dishwashing, transplanting root stock, typing in an insurance office...the list goes on. But I had a sense of getting somewhere, of building a safe and sustainable future. And I still do.

My self discipline has grown through the years. Now my obedience is not only to gaining objects through a paycheck, but seeing my dreams manifest in various ways (rose gardens, plum sauce, elderberry tincture, women's retreats, social service programs). That satisfaction goes beyond simple cash exchange to a sacred connection to myself and my community.

How to communicate to the younger ones the joy of work? Companion them, and let them companion you. Little hands, awkward, inexperienced, can still pit cherries or pound nails on an old board. They only need the invitation. And when their shoulders start pushing the plow, because their expecting a baby or wanting a newer car, be there with encouragement and suggestions. Be present with them, and authentic. That's all they ask.