The Value of Hard Work

Let me just say that I love Mike Rowe.
A) I think he's cute.
B) I love that he's willing to do ANYTHING that requires hard work.
C) He is a great story-teller. (Please click on the link below.  Yes, it takes 20 minutes to watch, but I bet it will make you squirm, laugh, and learn.)

http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.html

In this talk, he said something that has had me wondering about ever since I watched it.  He doesn't really elaborate much on the philosophy of it, but he says being told to, "Follow your passion" is the worst advice ever.

And I'm still not sure about whether I agree or disagree with him.

First of all, I would argue (because my first inclination is to argue) that by giving a Ted talk about the heroism in doing Dirty Jobs, Mike Rowe is, in fact, following his passion.  If he is not passionate about hard work and encouraging others to appreciate and embrace the value of hard work, then he sure goes to enormous lengths to lead people to believe otherwise.  This man bit off a sheep's testicles to celebrate the value of hard work, my friends.  I'm pretty sure he is passionate about the subject.

This is the whole reason I disagree.  In order to do the hard work day after day after day, we must be passionate about something involved in it.  Now, there may not seem to be a direct correlation to your willingness to do a dirty job and passion, but I assure you, there is.  A single mom may go to extreme lengths, like working 2 or 3 jobs because she is passionate about supporting her children, even if she is not passionate about any of those jobs.

I am certainly not passionate about doing dishes or laundry or wiping pee off of the bathroom floor, but I do them all daily because I am passionate about caring for my children.

I think part of what he really meant by that is that we were made to work for work's sake.  We MUST work.  God made us to WORK.  When we don't have anything to work on, we make up stupid things to work on.  We NEED to do work.

And even though we don't think we want to do nasty things, like shovel poop or be a pig farmer or sift through trash, it feels good to just work.

I don't really like to weed my garden.  I watch the weeds take over as I look out the window while doing dishes.  I procrastinate because it's too hot or we have somewhere to be and I don't have time to pull them all... And when I can't take it anymore, I walk out back, force the boys to play ball in the backyard, and before I know it, the boys are giggling and playing, and I'm smiling in the sun, watching them play and enjoying the work of gardening.

And sometimes we learn a lot by just doing what needs to be done.  One suck lesson is that love is sacrifice. And whatever we love... whatever we are passionate about... we will suck it up and clean the crap off of whatever it needs to be cleaned off of... because we love.  Not because we LOVE cleaning up crap, but because we love the ones who crapped on us...

Huh... sounds like somebody else I know.