DO THE THINGS YOU DON'T WANT TO DO, AND DO THEM FIRST!!

I grew up in a generation of folks taught to work, regardless of whether or not you actually enjoyed the work.  We weren't taught that work should be fun, or entertaining.  Work is a vehicle to better things, pays you money that can be spent on things you enjoy . . . but the job itself does not carry with it the requirement of being a joyful experience.  But that was yesterday, not the way most folks in this day and age think.  I'm not even sure anyone thinks about what they work at as actually being a job.  Job implies work, right?  Maybe what's happening is that we've turned into a society of people who frown on jobs, want professions instead.  Well, I've got news for you pardner - most work is not a profession because those are jobs reserved for folks who've earned the right to a recognized profession.  If you don't get the ticket, you can't ride the bus, and the world is full of people who aren't qualified to call their jobs "a profession."

But . . . having a job, regardless of what it's called, is important.  Do what you can do, and if digging ditches is all you can do, then do it.  Paint houses, be a carpenter, learn to be a bricklayer or a welder or a mechanic, but do something without the expectation that it should be fun.  Do it because you need to.  Do it because you want the money.  Do it because it's simply the right thing to do.  Don't make excuses for what you do, and do it with pride that you at least have a job and are not a drag, a weight on society.  We've got lots of them, too - the drags.

My dad once told me that I needed to get a good education because I was too lazy to work, and he was right about that.  I didn't learn to work until after I got the education and became a college professor.  I worked some along the way toward getting myself into a professional status - did construction work, worked on a ranch, other things.  College teaching bored the crap out of me.  I enjoyed it most of the time, worked hard at being a good professor, but I still got antsy and restless . . . and that led to me doing other things.  I once had a paint contracting business, did that for several years to earn extra money and drive off the ants in my pants.  Woodworking has been a fascination of mine since my early years, and I've stayed with that over the years.  I've always had a shop to work in, can't imagine life without one.  I grew up around working people, factory workers who did their jobs and then came home and did what pleased them.  Introduction to a work ethic like that was good for me, perhaps one of the best things that ever happened to me.

My grandson can't keep a job because he's retarded.  No, he isn't mentally retarded, he's just a ten year old in an adult's body.  He's a spoiled brat who flunked out of college after one semester, and has failed at every job he ever had . . . because he can't do things he doesn't want to do.  His mother is an enabler because she puts up with him.  He's a good enough kid, doesn't get into trouble, doesn't like to party or anything like that.  He's just lazy, and laziness is a form of retardation.  The worst form of social retardation?  When you don't do the things you don't want to do, you're retarded, and worse yet, you retard everything around you.  You're a drag, a weight on society, a loser.  And you'll stay a retardate until you learn to do the things you don't enjoy doing . . . and you need to learn to do those things first.  That makes the fun things you do a whole lot more fun.