And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Gen 3:17-19)
I have touched on my relationship with laziness (read this entry to work it out). This isn’t a sequel to that blog, but there are similar themes between the two.
It takes a lot of work to be lazy. No, seriously, it takes an effort to say to yourself you will do next to nothing and be as work-shy as possible. In any day and age it takes effort to avoid all the calls to get involved in activity and labour of some point and worth. It’s not something you can ease into, because there is something there about doing something that bugs everyone. The level of de-motivation and discouragement has to be significant to jack in any sign of work.
That’s not applauding lazy people for the work they put in, it’s the acknowledgement that there is something about work that’s in-built. It doesn’t have to always be activated and developed, but it is in-built in the human psyche. That’s further evidenced by the answer, actually, behind the question of what you would do with a million pounds. Depending on your age to a large degree the follow-up question of would you still work is based on how much you’ve already worked. Sure you might quit your current job, but it wouldn’t be too long before boredom would settle in.
Not only is there the money, but there’s the thought of how the money can work for you, and how you can work that money. There’s the issue of what to do with all that new time on your hands. There’s only so much leisure you can take. Even world tours would eventually be measures of work, because to some degree work is ingrained in the human condition.
The problem with work, is its portrayal and it’s connection with either the mundane, the routine, the drab, the lacking in stimulation and the lacking in satisfaction. Also there is the intensity called for by some areas of work, which brings us to the wonderful concept of hard work.
Take football for instance. The British mentality appears to not make too big a deal about flair, skill and creativity and more about stamina, energy and effort. If the player comes off the pitch having dragged his carcass for all 90 minutes across every blade of grass on the pitch, that player appears to have done well. They gain the favour of the fans. If the sweat is there, if the sense of exhaustion through all that effort is there then no one asks for anything more.
Meanwhile if you’re a less physical player who lets you brain do the thinking and conserve energy for short bursts of creativity or flair and don’t do the 90 minute marathon man bit of carting yourself all over the pitch you are not valued as well. There is a upper echelon of players who escape this criticism, but they are the exception that proves the rule. There is something about ‘hard work’ and the appearance of it that is appealing to the onlooker.
It’s not only in the area of football, but a lot of life is measured by how ‘hard’ has someone worked. Where’s the evidence of graft? That’s why manual jobs are in some circles regarded as real work as opposed to office jobs or creative jobs. The old sweat of the brow factor comes in as we laud those who put in a good set of hours hard in the coalface, straining and grappling with their tools in order to come about with the right solution. All hail hard work, eh?
My problem with hard work is that the sweat of the brow business pops up as part of a curse. As I read it, the insinuation here is that man, designed and created to work will find the work a lot harder than it should be. Man’s reluctance to heed God’s voice leads to difficulty in doing things that should be done without that level of stain, that strenuous effort, that hard labour.
I love the sense of satisfaction after doing a good day’s work, but I get the impression that as Jesus outlined in His life’s work when you are in line with obeying the voice of God and overcome the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life work done God’s way is not so much hard, but fruitful, productive, satisfying, enjoyable, endurable and ultimately pleasing to God because it’s His motivation that leads to work.
Don’t get me wrong, sweat will still pour, frustration will still arise and things will have to be battered to make progress, dogged persistence has its place. All I’m saying is that the great god we make of ‘hard work’ isn’t worth the paper he’s not written on. Hard work sounds a bit too much like hard work to me.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
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Life With CD 