The importance of work

Everybody hates work. Work makes you get up early in the morning, makes you do tasks that you would rather not do, and finally you earn just enough to keep on doing that for the rest of your life. The moment you are born, you have work lined up for you. In the first few years, you work is most intensive. You have to learn to know your body, learn to walk, learn a new language and finally start to understand the social laws and regulations around you. I say, start to learn because it never ends. Not until you die.

You are enrolled in kindergarten, then comes primary, middle and high school. You all know the drill. You work on your studies, hopefully giving you social laws and skills that help you live within the social regulations of your society, i.e., be educated so that you can earn your own "living" in this world. And finally you come out, You have completed your skill set requirements. You have reached a point for which you have been preparing your whole life. The moment when you start paying back your dues. The so-called childhood is over, now face the world. The society starts demanding stuff from you, and you keep satisfaction it. Until you retire at the age of 60-65 years. Then your skill has better uses, (or no more uses) so you try to satisfy them.

I went through all of this for a reason. Suppose and just suppose you don't have to work. You will not earn anything or your earning is just enough for surviving, that is, like cashing out your unemployment benefits.

Suddenly, you have so much time and so little work needed to be done. Some people have no problem being "lazy", and actually welcome it. However, for most people, the average person who has struggled through the previous tasks assigned to him or her by the society suddenly has nothing to do.

It is said that old women are the best matchmakers of the society. They sit around, conference and debate the pros and cons of a prospective couple. If you ask them why they are so bothered with such tasks, they would point to the lack of work as well as they being needed in this industry. Thus, certain sections of the society are assigned informal tasks for the rest of their lives.

What I want to point out is that even tough most people hate formal work, they cant live without it. Until you have lived without a task-reward system, you do not appreciate the necessity of the work ethic in human society.

People say that good old days were better. When everybody was a farmer and stuff. I don't see the difference between those times and now. The amount of time is the same. 24 hours. The number of formal tasks performed varied. You did have less formal tasks to be formed. However, you have informal tasks that needed to be taken care of. An example would be the high children ratio per parent. Raising children was an informal task, which stuck to the task-reward system. An happy child gives happiness to the parents and visa versa.

In the present generation, we survive by the task-reward system. The system of tasks as well as the reward system has become more sophosicated and complex but the fundamentals are the same. It has become very formal, as in salary increases, promotions etc.

What will happen if there is no task/reward system? One can say, communism as well as socialism, both do not have such system at the individual level. They do have it at the societal level or the community level. Such task/reward system does not work at any other level without having it at the individual level. Once a robust and successful reward system (i.e. capitalism) is attained, further advances can be made possible.

I am giving the example of capitalism as a successful reward system with a pinch of salt. Capitalism address the need for reward correctly, however, the mode of the reward/prize itself is under constant debate. It has been reported repeatedly that people in highly capitalistic counties are no more happier than poorer countries which have lower levels of capitalist insticts. Or should I say materialistic insticts.

Coming back to the point, The "lazy people" do not have reward system. Nor do those who do not work. Thus, without motivation, life becomes suddenly every hard. You question each aspect of life, trying to find some kind of reward. The stuff you learnt, the classes you took. The good times as well as the bad times. However the problems with reward system is that it is giving you the rewards as long as you work your tasks, once you stop, the rewards stop. None are carried over from the previous year nor future work is rewarded today in the present society. This society of ours has become an complete results based society. No work means no chance of attaining positive results. No positive results means no rewards. And a person without rewards...Well you figure.