Idle Hands

I’m going to take off from yesterday’s article in a little different way. Before the Industrial Revolution, our society survived with physical labor at the core. Our forefathers had to work the land to live. There were very limited amounts of power tools or machines to do the work for or assist them. Most people had jobs that required them to spend time outdoors to support their family. Jobs varied from farming, building houses, cutting timber, mining, building railroads, and a vast many more. The one common point of each job was hard, physically demanding work. People had to work hard or they would not survive. That’s just the way the world was. Life was hard and demanding. Is today’s world any different?

Yes, very much so. We have replaced physical labor with mental labor. Our minds are the focus of our work now. The majority of our workers now work indoors in offices or within buildings. We have replaced physical stress with mental stress. Which would you rather do? Would you rather work with your hands and physical capabilities each day to support your family or would you rather sit behind a desk at a computer thinking your way through your day? It’s an easy answer right? That’s like asking would you rather win the lottery or not. Well, as you may have noticed, I have a much different perspective on lots of things. My answer is I would rather work outside in a physically demanding job. You may think I’m lacking the mental ability necessary. You may think I’ve not had the opportunity to experience both types of work. Wrong on both, I have a college degree in both economics and finance and I have worked both in physically intense jobs and office jobs.

Still, my choice is to work in a physically demanding job. Why would I choose this? Being a rational individual, it’s easier to work with your mind so why not focus on that job? Look at the people you know who work in mentally demanding jobs. Are they happy? Are they stressed out? Do they bring their job home with them? Are they actually living their life? Yes, there are some who are meant to use their mental ability to serve their purpose. But, I believe the majority of us would be happier in a physical job. Our economy demands efficiency or we are left behind. Our companies demand more hours and less vacation to serve their profit motives. Who suffers from this efficiency and lack of time? The answer is us of course, and our families. We work long hours at work trying to complete projects. We stress over things outside of our control within our industry. We bring the job and stress home to our families only to wake up to another day of the same mental anguish. Our body pays the price and our families pay an even greater price. They lose the relationship with the person they love. They begin to deal with a shell of that individual.

Physical work has one thing that mental work does not. It has an end. It has a completion. It reaches a point of success that you can readily see with your eyes. You KNOW you have accomplished something because it’s right there in front of you. Satisfaction of knowing your job has been completed is worth more than money. It pays you in many other ways than a dollar can. Mental work NEVER ends. Mental work more often than not NEVER has a completion date. Mental work does not allow your eyes to SEE your accomplishment. Mental work continues through iteration after iteration. You succumb to the flow charts of endless if statements. When you are building a house, you can finish it. When you are farming your land, you can harvest it. When you are delivering products, you are done when your truck is empty. EVERY physical job has an end to it. You reach the completion of that job and begin another task knowing you have accomplished something.

Mental work leads to what the article talks about, idle hands. You sit in front of your computer or in your office by your phone and use your mental prowess to work for a living. It is easier yes, but still somewhat unsatisfying. People are natural at multi-tasking so while we sit in our office, our focus tends to become filtered amongst many other things. Our minds wander, and thus, our efficiency drops. Rather than focusing on the one goal at hand, we are focused on ten things all in different stages and accomplish next to nothing. The office environment facilitates many other issues that hurt our society. It fosters thought processes focused on the individual rather than the group. How can I get ahead? How can I get the promotion? How can I make myself look better than my co-worker? How can I make myself more important so I’m not laid off? All of these questions start with “How can I.” There is a reason for that. You are not focused on completing a task others can see the results of. Thus you have to make yourself visible in other ways.

When someone is a brick layer, you can readily see the product of their work. When someone is an office worker, can you readily see what their 8 hours of work produced? Most likely you cannot. This leads to the above scenarios because people NEED to be recognized for their work. Physical labor results in immediate closure. Mental labor almost never completes. How do you feel when you are done mowing your lawn? You are tired, but you are happy with the task being accomplished. How do you feel when you sit at your desk solving mental tasks that are never seen or are easily forgotten? It’s an underwhelming feeling of accomplishment more often than not. How do you feel when you reach the completion of building something? You feel great, you MADE something! How do you feel when you create a spreadsheet for work? Great, it’s an automated calculator. Yes, you did make something, but can you see it, can you touch it, can you really use it? It’s not the same.

Producing things physically is born within us. Human nature is to use our hands. We are MADE this way. We are not made to sit behind a desk in an office. If we can find our path in a physical job, our lives would regain the happiness we have lost through our generations. Using our hands keeps our mind focused and keeps our hearts happy. Our family will welcome the return of the “new” you. Bring back the you without stress, the you who won’t bring your job home to them, and the you your spouse may only know existed. If you are given the chance to support your family with a physically demanding job, spend some serious time considering it, you may have the chance of a lifetime in front of you. You may be winning the lottery of your life. Not in terms of money, but in happiness within and with your family. Our past generations had less than we have available to us and they stayed together, lived together, loved each other, and worked in demanding ways. I believe the removal of physical labor from our lives has harmed our society in many ways. We need to accept the challenge individually and focus on what really matters most, our family. Work HARD and accomplish something! Be a carpenter of your own life.