Hard Work Not Enough
Remember that old axiom of work hard and you’ll be successful? There are so many clichés like Keep your nose to the grindstone and Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. For generations people in
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Now manufacturing jobs are part of American folklore and hard work means longer hours and earning a few dollars above minimum wage, hardly enough to support a family nevertheless spend any time with them. And if you really work hard and are rewarded with increasing pay, today’s companies terminate you because you have become too expensive to keep.
If you ever needed a reason not to buy electronics from Circuit City, remember the 3400 people who were terminated recently because they did a good job, worked hard, got pay raises and then were terminated because of pay that was out of line with the industry. Whenever a company states it is offering competitive salaries, interpret that as paying you a wage that is in line with the industry and that pay increases could eventually cause you to lose your job.
Hard work in today’s economy means that you need to have a high level of critical and creative thinking. Today’s jobs are sitting down and office based or standing on your feet teaching all day Working with your hands means using a computer, telephone or a whiteboard.
Do not underestimate the difficulty of good thinking. It is hard work and not everybody can do it. Remember Henry Ford’s comment? If thinking were easy everyone would do it.
Hard work today is not as much physical as it is mental determination. The hard part of today’s job is staying on the task and not being distracted by the 100 things that pass by you everyday. Focus is the hard part of today’s jobs.
Unfortunately, good thinking coupled with determined focus does not yield high pay. Ask any of today’s recent hires in the K-12 educational system. The average salary for new teachers is under $35,000. Currently there are 66 baseball players earning over $10 million per year. Both teachers and ball players work hard but only one gets paid what they are worth. (Wouldn’t it be great if these 66 baseball players started their own private schools and paid teachers a respectable middle-class salary?)
Look around at people in your community. Many of them are working multiple jobs. They work long hours. Yet, they are not financially or emotionally successful. They have a difficulty saving money and time to spend enjoying the company friends and family.
Is there an alternative? Yes. People need to end their commitment to consumerism and start living small. Lives need to be simplified by removing the excess. Instead of working hard to have money, work hard to have relationships.
No matter how much money you earn it will never be enough if you keep buying things. Instead, cultivating friendships and developing quality family life is both rewarding and provides renewable sources of satisfaction and contentment. Do you really need Blu-Ray HD-DVDs?
GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE
© 2007 3 Minute Learning LLC
