A different perspective

I never understood why Ugandans get all ecstatic at the idea of a public holiday until I learnt at a recent Men's conference that it's because we don't like to work. We've a twisted perspective toward work. We look at it as evil, a curse, something we're forced to do to survive. 

Do we love to play more than work?

Yet work is an honourable thing that ought to be embraced with enthusiasm and dynamism. It's not evil, is not a curse. It's the way to joy and fulfillment in life. And the sooner we embrace that idea the better, considering that 60 percent of adult life is spent working. 

So we shouldn't find the easy way out. Because happiness cannot be found in the lazy man's house. It cannot be found in working 'smart', which has become the unofficial synonym for swindling.  Meaning and fulfillment in life is found through being valuable and no one can add value without embracing work. 

It's in beginning to look at work as a grand opportunity to change the world that we shall be fired up. Let's begin to view work not as a means to earn a living and get the things we need in life, but rather as something through which the world can get better. Then work will cease to be drudgery but something much bigger and noble than we often render it. Let's give it the respect it deserves. Look at it as something of intrinsic value, as something to which we can proudly apply ourselves with focus, passion, creativity, excellence and integrity. 

 

And you know what will happen? We shall have prosperity, influence, and most of all an inner fulfillment that has remained elusive even to some of the richest people in the world who used shortcuts to accumulate their enormous wealth.

Let me end with the words of Nathan Eldon Turner: "Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth."