Five Minute Friday - Work

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One word. Five minutes to write about it. This is the idea behind Five Minute Friday and this is today's free-writing post.

an honest day's work

work hard, play hard

make it work

work ethic

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How interesting that the prompt is 'work' at the end of my first week of working at a brand new job! Which is also why I'm doing it on Saturday instead of on Friday. 

Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. ~Newt Gingrich

I wasn't super excited about getting a job, but we'd decided it would probably be good for me to find something that would get me out of the house and interacting with people during the week, and of course having a bit of extra income almost always comes in handy. After several months living here, I still have very few connections and have been struggling with isolation, lack of motivation, and feeling  sort of like I had no purpose. 

I would rather risk wearing out than rusting out. ~Theodore Roosevelt

I know my purpose in life, generally speaking. But it feels a lot like all the ways I lived out my purpose were left behind when we moved. The family that I spent most of my time with, the house where I felt at home, the friends that I was connected to, the homeschool community I served, the church where I belonged, and a job that I enjoyed. All those activities and settings and people that anchored me and helped me feel like me, like I had something of value to offer and had an identity. I wouldn't have described it like that―that my work and the things I did were my identity―until I didn't have those things any more, and then I questioned it. 

Employment is nature's physician, and is essential to human happiness. ~Galen

If a man is called a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and Earth will pause to say, Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well. ~Martin Luther King Jr

How much do we judge our own worth and value and identity by what we DO? Most of us define ourselves by our work role, and that's one of the first questions we ask when we meet someone new. What do you do? Where do you work? We almost instinctively want to find a way to categorize this new person as a way to decide how to relate to them. When we don't have an answer, or an interesting answer, to that question, we may feel embarrassed or uninteresting or irrelevant. I do. I found that when meeting people, they usually didn't have much in the way of follow-up questions for conversation after finding out that I wasn't working. 

I can say the willingness to get dirty has always defined us as a nation, and it's a hallmark of hard work and a hallmark of fun, and dirt is not the enemy. ~Mike Rowe

We shouldn't have our identity and self-worth wrapped up and dependent on our work or what we do, but that is how we live out our purpose and identity, isn't it? How we put into practice who we are. And we are created to work, after all. God created humans to work, to  participate with him in creativity and management and distributing his blessing to the created world. We need rest and that's part of the blessing, but we don't find fulfillment in laziness or idleness. We find fulfillment in doing what God calls us to do―doing the work that he's given us, whether that's physical and manual labor or creative pursuits or applying our minds to good purpose. 

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

~Genesis 2:15~

My husband has asked me a couple times this first week of my new job how I feel about it and about myself. Do I feel like I have a bit more direction, like I have some value to contribute? We know that having a job isn't the defining force of my life, but we understand that work is one of the big factors in living out a purposeful life.

Here is what I have seen to be good: It is appropriate to eat, drink, and experience good in all the labor one does under the sun during the few days of his life God has given him, because that is his reward. Furthermore, everyone to whom God has given riches and wealth, he has also allowed him to enjoy them, take his reward, and rejoice in his labor. This is a gift of God, for he does not often consider the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with the joy of his heart.

~Ecclesiastes 5:18-20~

How happy is everyone who fears the LORD,

who walks in his ways!

You will surely eat

what your hands have worked for.

You will be happy,

and it will go well for you.

~Psalm 128:1-2~

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I choose a lazy person to do a hard job, because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it. ~Bill Gates

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This post is linked at Five Minute Friday for the word prompt "Work".

This post will also be linked at Inspire Me Monday hosted by Anita Ojeda.

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