What, you don't want to work?

What, you don’t want to work?

This is not a spiritual essay, but the essence of spirituality comes into our lives every day regardless of how much we utilize the presence of God in our decisions.  I am going to begin my thoughts dating back around 70 years when I was in my early teens and a little before that age.  During the 1940’s, right after the start of WWII, money was always a problem for most working people since my parents, like most adults their age, were beginning to recover from the depression and building their lives.  Rationing became a way of life, air raid wardens patrolling the neighborhood, A, B, C stamps for automobile windows determining how much gasoline one could put in their cars.  Today’s gas prices are nothing compared to what it was like during the war.  

Growing up once the war ended my father taught me to be thrifty with whatever I had in money.  He said, “if you want something expensive or even a little more than you have, work for it.”  A lesson that stuck with me to this day.  So, when the news exhibits stories regarding how our government is eliminating that philosophy by printing billions of paper money with little regard as to how much gold in reserves is actually backing up the money, it becomes a mystery as to who is working to pay the bills?  So much money is flowing out of the treasury no one wants to work anymore.  Collecting unemployment is worth more than laboring for food or other needs.

I have a distaste for give-away programs to look political on the surface that may eventually bring our need financially to hit bottom.  But more egregious is the fact that too many able-bodied people of all ages are capable of earning their pay by actually getting off their butts and doing something instead of the rest of us paying their welfare.

The response of many is they don’t pay enough.  Too bad!  As I digress a little, my first job was as a movie theater usher at .40 cents an hour.  That was in the late 40’s.  I moved beyond that to working part-time in a Gulf Gasoline station for one dollar an hour.  Ok, this is many years ago when a bus ride on the Pittsburgh Railways was only 5 cents for a short ride and getting a transfer for further rides.  My point is yes the pay was small even then, but I was industrious enough to hold my head high because I was contributing to society, not mooching.

There is very little compassion for able-bodied people who can work and won’t.  Accepting  welfare and becoming part of this system of someone else keeping them seems to be the way to go.  There are plenty of jobs available.  How many times can anyone go out to eat only to find many eateries either closing or shortening their hours because they can’t find anyone who will work.

A term called work-ethic was started after WWII and stuck with those my age all these years.  I worked until I turned 80 and thought maybe I will relax a while. There aren’t very many who adhere to this type of manhood.

Am I being critical of this type of current manhood?  Absolutely!   However, like everything else that has lost touch with God, drifting in an empty vision of being one who cares about responsibility by working for it, and looking up with glassy eyes that can see no further than the tip of their nose, are contributing to the downfall of society and the lack of virtue.  

Ralph B. Hathaway