Labor of love

My first job was at Swensen’s Ice Cream Parlor in San Anselmo, California.  I was 12 years old.  My nursery school pal’s Mom was the owner of the store, and I am sure I broke some labor laws by working so young.  But I loved it.  It was 1978 and I admit that my main motivation was to save enough cash to buy a pair of Candies shoes, Danceskin skirt and leotard for the upcoming 7th grade dance.

I started as a dishwasher and found it strangely satisfying to clean huge piles of sticky, sugary bowls for hours and hours until the sink was washed clean.  I worked my way up to ice cream scooper, then Assistant Manager at 14, earning the coveted Employee of the Month award two times in two years.

I learned so many things from my first job:  the importance of being on time, customer service, how to work a cash register, employee relations, the art of food display and a lifelong passion for Mocha Chip ice cream with crushed walnuts.  But mostly I learned that I love to work, a feeling that has stayed with me to this day.

For better or worse, I only feel this passion for work that I enjoy.  If I am uninspired, I am a hopeless procrastinator.  So I have steered my career in directions that have intense personal interest and enjoyment.  So far, so good.

On this day that celebrates the labor of all of us out there fretting and sweating in our daily jobs, I wanted to share a passage from one of my favorite writings of all times, The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran:

On Work

Then a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work.
And he answered, saying:
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of the earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.
But if you in your pain you call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.
You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.
Often I have heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, “He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.”
But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks no more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

_____

My wish for you today, and every day?  That you find work you love.

Happy Labor Day!