Cultivate our garden

I think work is good for us. It gives us purpose. It gives us a label. It gives us self-respect. When I was younger, I thought I couldn't wait until I couldn't work anymore. But when work ended, when my retirement was forced on me by health reasons, I realized that work was a blessing. It might be hard and frustrating--it often was--but now I realize what joy was in it, too. The routine, the challenges, the day-to-day of it all...it helped keep me going. Kept me young.

The world sells this picture of leisure as what we should be striving for, but work gives that leisure meaning. I'm not saying we should stay at a job where our soul is crushed, but it's that job that is bad. Work itself is a noble thing; it is a proud thing. We were made to work so that our times when we don't work are made more enjoyable by the contrast.

Of course, I'm not the first person to realize this and won't be the last.

The following is from the novel Candide, ou l'Optimisme known in English as Candide written by Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) and published in 1759:

“I know also,” said Candide, “that we must cultivate our garden.”

“You are right,” said Pangloss, “for when man was first placed in the Garden of Eden, he was put there ut operaretur eum, that he might cultivate it; which shows that man was not born to be idle.”

“Let us work,” said Martin, “without disputing; it is the only way to render life tolerable.”

The whole little society entered into this laudable design, according to their different abilities. Their little plot of land produced plentiful crops. Cunegonde...became an excellent pastry cook; Paquette worked at embroidery; the old woman looked after the linen. ...Friar Giroflée...made a good joiner, and became a very honest man.

Pangloss sometimes said to Candide: “There is a concatenation of events in this best of all possible worlds: for if you had not been kicked out of a magnificent castle for love of Miss Cunegonde: if you had not been put into the Inquisition: if you had not walked over America: if you had not stabbed the Baron: if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of El Dorado: you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio-nuts.”

“All that is very well,” answered Candide, “but let us cultivate our garden.”

-- End --

So let us cultivate our garden, my friends, as best we can.