Work Hard, Work Harder

I'll be the first one to admit it.

My most recent post was irrelevant.  I hope it was enjoyable to read and thought provoking.  If it was then perhaps it wasn't wasted.  Still, however, it wasn't relevant, particularly in view of my aim for this blog and why I am a captive heart.

Reflecting on this (no pun intended on the theme of my last post), I resolved to make this next post actually relevant and accordingly took an extra day or two to publish it.

I began to ask myself what is relevant to other people.  What do they want to read? What do they need to read? 

What is important to folks these days?  It can be difficult to say what is important to a man by looking at his life.

THIS IS A PROBLEM.

A man's demeanor should show the world what is important to him.  What he does and how he does it should show something about his motives and in what he finds his meaning.

The thing that occupies the majority of a man's waking time is his work, or for the student, his studies.  It could be said of the working family man that he must therefore value his family since he spends so much time seeking to provide for them.

Fair enough.

But does he really?  Does the way a man treats his work really indicate that he loves his family? I think it should, but many times it does not.

A man who will work long, hard hours for dirt pay, doing something he hates is probably a man who loves his family.  His family gives him a reason to endure harsh conditions and he is able to persist in the same, horrid job for decades because of it.

But if he loves his family, shouldn't it be evident by the manner in which he performs his work?

When I see a man who loves his work, I see a man who loves his family.  This does not mean he gets any pleasure out of his work or that he even likes it.  But a man who loves his family should love his work.

 Your work is what makes it possible for your family to have clothes, a roof over their head, and attain basic human rights.  Your job is the means to a beautiful end and it therefore should be treated with a great reverence.

Your work may be unimaginably monotonous and unrewarding.  Yet the ability to love that work because of what it means shows deep love and responsibility. 

Christians have a great respect for The Cross.  But in the final analysis, what is The Cross but a piece of wood which supported the agonizing pain and death of Our God?

It is so much more! The Cross is the instrument God chose on which to redeem the world.  The cross is the altar on which a sacrifice was and is offered to God for the salvation of mankind.

We reverence The Cross because of what it represents.  Likewise we should have a sense of reverence for our work because of what it represents.

This does not mean you should kneel before your boss every morning and kiss both of his knees.  I am in no way suggesting that the reverence we have for our work should be equal or even comparable to our reverence for The Cross.

But think about it.  The work you do is the tool that keeps a roof over the heads of your family.  It is the tool that you use to put food on the table.  It is the tool that enables you to support your church and meet all of your other responsibilities as a Catholic Man.  If you are single, then it is the tool that enables you to be a good steward of the gifts given you by God in preparation for whatever vocation you follow.

So while it may not be quite up there with The Cross, your work is due reverence.

This means that you work well and you work hard.  You don't put in the minimum effort.  You do what has to be done and should be done.  Go the extra mile and put your whole self into your work.  Take pride in your work and make it your own.

You don't have to find pleasure in it or enjoy it in any way.  Just find and truly embrace the meaning in it.

Now just like any means to an end, work can be abused and a man can focus on work too much and forget the end.  I am not encouraging anyone, least of all a man with a family, to become a workaholic. 

The love you have for your work should come primarily from its end and not from the work itself.

There is nothing wrong with loving your work and I strongly encourage you to try to find work that you do love.  I myself hope to one day be a farmer because that is what I love to do.  There is nothing wrong with loving the work because you like the work.

But I believe that this love should be secondary to that which stems from your work as the means of providing for your family.   

In a future post I hope to talk about work in more depth and the value that it has in itself.  But today I thought it was fitting and relevant to address the need for men to love their work for what it enables them to do.

Someone should be able to look at you at work and know that you love your family.  Not because you are willing to do something that you obviously hate, but because you love deeply what you are doing, even if it is an undesirable task.

So I challenge all of my readers to reflect on the way in which they perform their work, whether in supporting a family or a student studying.  What is the end for which you work?  Is that end evident to others and to yourself by the way you perform your daily duties?

If the answer is yes, you're a better man than I.