Enjoy every day through God’s eyes.

Saint Stuart
August 7, 2022

When I was younger and not as mature as I am now, I dreaded a vital part of life that I now greatly value and enjoy — working. In my 20s life was a prison to me. I did not choose to be born into this society, yet I was forced to labour for the majority of my life just to survive. My aspirations were to philosophize and write, not drive to some office or factory to do monotonous tasks for the next forty years of my life so I could have a roof over my head and food on the table. I became depressed and unmotivated, even suicidal at one point, as I distracted my anxiety with mind-numbing stimulations. I was smoking cigarettes and weed, binge-watching my favourite shows, playing hours of video games and had an unhealthy addiction to pornography. My bad habits were only conditioning me to further failures in life, socially, financially and emotionally. I didn’t have any motivation to change where my future was headed, preferring to drown in my distractions, and ended up in a hospital one night after failing to kill myself.

Fast-forward ten or so years. I’m living closer to my friends and family, working again and on a path to break free of my addictions. I had big debts haunting me and low-paying jobs sustaining me, so my anxiety was still high, but I pushed myself through it and would soon find myself paying off debts easier than I imagined.

Before my outlook on work changed, I was in jobs that weren’t very labour-intensive. My work experience was in computer programming, graphic design, customer service, cashier and tech support. I was good at it and it paid the bills, but I needed a change as the work was becoming sparse where I was at the time. With a love for gardening and plant care, I soon found myself in my first labour job — landscaping.

During this time I was going through a spiritual transformation. Going back to church was changing my attitude for the better and my devotion to God and self-care started to grow hand-in-hand. I was reading my Bible and praying daily and breaking free of every addiction and bad habit. I got off cigarettes, weed, pornography, and although I never really had a problem with it, I also quit saying swear words, both out loud and in my head. My physical and mental health improved dramatically and the wholesome pleasures that I spent years numbing myself to started to fulfill and satisfy my life again. With this new clarity in my life I began to improve in my workmanship, challenging myself to work harder and more efficiently. I had been working on a writing project about virtue at the time and when I learned that being industrious is a virtue I channeled my focus and energy through that and it put me into overdrive.

As landscaping was seasonal I eventually made a move into tree work with an arborist service. It was much more physical work, as well as dangerous, and in line with my virtue project I started to think of how to be as prudent as possible, using resources (especially fuel) as efficiently as I could. I was a groundsman, collecting branches and wood dropped by the arborist and bringing it all to a chipper that pulverized it into wood chips. It ran on fuel, so I had to find the balance between letting it run continuously or building up piles to run through a bit at a time. if the piles were too big, though, it would jam up the chipper, slowing work. In some cases there was a lot coming down, so running it continuously was best, but if not much was getting chipped then it was best to make piles to save fuel. It was the type of exercise in prudence that I found myself bringing to other areas of my life, in driving. washing dishes, making meals, showering and doing other chores. If I use less of what I need, there is more to go around for others and even myself later, and inflation due to supply and demand won’t rise as much, especially if this principle is practiced on a mass scale. As an employee I was happy if my efficiency could save money, because it made me more valuable to my employers. Not only that, it also made me happier at the end of the day knowing what I accomplished, so the more I could accomplish, the happier I was, as well as my employer and the customers we serviced.

The forty-year prison term that my life used to seem like became a daily privilege and opportunity to provide happiness to others, which according to my virtue project was the very definition of what love is. Improving my skills and attitude would improve my ability to do that and to daily feel the joy of productivity. After all of that sets in-after realizing how much my work brings joy and satisfaction into the world-then do I remind myself that I am also financially compensated for it and the appreciation for what I do is overwhelming.

Driving to work each morning I would think of the thousands of people I would see, and the millions of people around the word all going to work to make a difference in the world, making co-workers, bosses and customers happy, progressing in projects, producing products, providing services, and I thought of how amazing it was to be a part of it. I was extremely grateful to God who had guided me to this new outlook and am happy every day now that I can work.

Through it all I learned to also appreciate God’s commandment to work six days and rest the seventh. I had a Monday to Friday job, did house chores on Saturday, and after church on Sunday did as little as possible, resting my body and mind for the next week, and the more I worked, the better I rested. My job was tiring but when I got home each day I continued to push myself by working out and making dinner. When I finally had the time to relax for a few hours before bed, the quality of rest I had was serene, and on Sunday with a full day devoted to relaxing, I was able to cherish every moment of it, feeling completely revitalized and recharged for the week ahead.

I had a saying I came up with that described my time at work. “I’m aiming to please, making it ease, then I’ll be catching some z’s.” Sometimes a task can seem complicated or difficult. A good way to deal with uncertainties is to ask questions and get advice, but it’s also important to be able to problem solve and learn through difficulties on our own. A good way to do that is usually to keep it simple. What are the main accomplishments needed? Visualize the whole job, task by task, to learn what is needed and what might be a hindrance. Also, be confident and energetic. With physical labour, the more energy I put in, the more strength and endurance I gained, making tasks easier and feeling less worn out at the end of the day and week. Making work easy takes both mental and physical determination to condition and refine talents, abilities, reflexes and reactions to master any task at hand. The more that is done, the more enjoyable it is.