As another summer wanes, we find the arrival of Labor Day. Congress approved a federal holiday back in 1894, although its first official observance was held in New York City September 5, 1882. While traditionally meant to celebrate the American worker, this occasion compels us to consider what it means for the modern workplace. While labor conditions have improved, a theme spins upon the spirit of industry – the inherent virtue of hard work.
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That principle applies for public administrators, politicians, farmers, trades persons, factory workers, bankers, lawyers, teachers, taxi drivers, housewives and even the student forging ahead with the latest homework task. The idea of hard work is ingrained in our society from the earliest moments. It’s the idea that no boon should come too easily. America was born in a crucible of strife and peace would only come after great sacrifices. That’s what industry means and remains an inherent theme of Labor Day. Without hard work – industry – there is no labor.
Thomas Jefferson wrote to his daughter in 1787,
“Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing.”
His old friend John Adams lamented to his wife in 1777, as the Revolutionary War raged on,
“Posterity! You will never know, how much it cost the present Generation, to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make a good Use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the Pains to preserve it.”
The unwavering push for economy and efficiency in today’s workplace still reigns supreme more than ever before. We are forever reminded that “time is money” for the larger organization. Too often, we forget the personal value of hard work as a key facet of our moral fiber, stretching into the deepest reaches of the human psyche. Once honed, its virtue translates into other arenas. America was built on the idea of industry; it is what we are. Without it, we stand for nothing.
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Martin Luther King famously declared the same in a speech,
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a 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.’”
We must seize these lessons, embracing the future with that same vigor with which we have survived the travails of our shared past. Industry will always make America great.
Submitted by Jason Bowns