Column by Dr. Ann Hollingsworth
As we approach Labor Day, it might be a joke to think of “work ethic” is the current political landscape of our nation where people are earning twice as much to stay at home for the government than to do an honest day’s work. Jobs are plentiful and pay is good for those who still have any sense of work ethic.
According to Wikipedia, work ethic is a “belief that work and diligence have a moral benefit and an inherent ability, virtue or value to strengthen character and individual abilities. It is a set of values centered on importance of work and manifested by determination or desire to work hard.” I have also read several places that our sense of self-esteem and confidence comes through our work.
Work answers that basic human question of “what am I here for?” We work and bring value to not only our own lives but to the lives of those around us. Even in the beginning as God created Adam and Eve, he gave them responsibility of caring for the world around them. Work fulfills a purpose for existence. To not work is to just take up space and basically to be wasted.
We can look at history of people and societies around the world. Work brings better living and not working brings struggle for existence. Work promotes freedom and not working promotes imprisonment.
Years ago, I knew a former Vietnam Prisoner of War who frequently did motivational talks on POW’s who were Prisoners of Welfare. That is so true today. Imprisonment, whether by the Vietcong or the Biden administration, can slowly suck the life out of a person.
As we celebrate this year’s Labor Day, I hope that there is a renewed sense of the value of work and determination to engage in that. Events like Hurricane Katrina and September 11, 2001, tend to bring people back to what is important in life. Who knows, Hurricane Ida promises to be of the scale of those two events. Maybe it will blow some sense into folks.
