What
Is The Importance Of Work And Its Effects On The Human Mind And Body?
Work
consists of the exercise of mind and body. It is a term commonly applied to all
labor at man performs to earn his daily bread. This work may be as congenial
as that of an artist or as uncongenial as that of common labor, it overtaxes
the powers of the worker. The laborer moves his muscles without using his
mind. But the artist uses his mind without ever using his muscles to earn a
living. Whatever the nature of work pleasant or monotonous, no one can
live without doing something. Even the idle man is not idle in the strict sense
of the world. His body may be idle, but his mind is keyed up to a breaking
point. He is bored and unhappy.
Blessed
is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. Carlyle
If any would not work, neither he should eat. New Testament
Work,
as somebody's center, is worship. God has given us body and mind to make use of
them. The man who lies idle without exercising the God-given faculties denies
the gift of God. If he offers regular prayers to God without making use of mind
and body, he is just like the man who mumbles some mysterious words without
understanding their significance. The best form of worship is to act in the
way of God. Carlyle was a true worshipper. He preached the sacredness of work.
He spoke with the fearlessness of a prophet when he said:
“All
true work is sacred in all true work, were it but true hand labor, there is
something of divineness, Labour, wide as the earth has its summit in Heaven.”
No
great achievement, whether in the field of art or science is possible without
hard work. All the great men of the world have been hard workers. Kepler,
Newton, Edison, and Jinnah, just to name a few of them, were men of titanic
energies. They worked day and night to let in the light of truth. If these men
had rested in idleness, the world would have been of poor place to live in. No
doubt, the head spark of genius, but even genius is incapable of producing any
marked results without persistent labor. GoldSmith had as much genius as
Johnson had. But Goldsmith frittered away his energies in idle vagrancy,
whereas Johnson made of fortune by sheer labor. The plodder sometimes steals a
march over the brilliant but ideal student. Take the case of two equally
intelligent students in your class and then watch their results. The one who
has worked hard will surely get more marks than the other who has not worked.
In short, hard work has always won the palm, when your intelligence has lost
it.
Work, even without any tangible results, is a great blessing. As walking is more exhilarating than sitting, similarly industry is more enjoyable than indolence. Schiller said that he found the great happiness of life to consist in the performance of some mechanical duty. This is how children enjoy themselves. In place of sitting idle, they go on doing something mechanical. It may be the turning of a wheel or that of the top. But it keeps them busy and happy. I have seen in children making brick houses or hammering old bicycles for hours. The work is unproductive, yet it yields joy. Children and animals never sit idle. It is only the grown-up man who sits idle for hours. Hence idleness is the curse of man.
Another
virtue of hard work is that it acts like a drug. When sorrows begin to hang
heavy on life hard work comes as a blessed relief from the tedium of life.
Indeed, the best way to forget sorrow is to lose oneself in some engaging work.
There is an interesting character in Burrow’s Romany Rye who illustrates this point
very clearly. He had lost his wife, to whom he was devoted, and felt for a time
that life had grown asleep barren. But he became interested in Chinese
inscriptions on teapots and tea chests, and with the aid of French Chinese
grammar, after learning French purpose, gradually managed to read
Chinese inscriptions. This is how he managed to forget his grief. Instead of
mourning and lamenting uselessly, he acquired a new interest in life.
Work,
if it is congenial, is the greatest solace of life. Even if the work is
uncongenial, it is better to do it than to skulk in idleness.
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