Let's face it: most of us HAVE to work! If we don't work, we don't eat. If we don't eat, we get sick. If we get sick, we go to the doctor. But if we don't work, we can't pay the doctor, so he doesn't help us. It's that simple, folks! If we don't work, we just can't make it! So we work.

The work we choose if another thing entirely! My ex was a college math teacher; my present husband was a welder. My children have worked in different fields, and have all been fairly successful in those fields. I was a teacher, but have also worked in several other fields: jewelry sales, car sales, Avon and Mary Kay sales, cashier, hole watch/fire guard, etc. But none of them compares to being a mother and grandmother. And I am both those, plus a writer. And a housekeeper, always and forever, it seems! The housework is always waiting to be done, even when it has just been finished!

So we all work. We work at home; we work at our jobs; we work in raising our children. We work to pay bills and have something left for food and the niceties of life. And paying those bills is work, too, in case someone hasn't tried it! Especially once you are on Social Security and retirement checks, and all together they don't add up to anywhere near what was coming in before retirement! So work is not just a fact of life, it is a necessity! It is food, water, electricity, and housing. It is transportation, recreation, and vacations!

It would be nice if we could go back to the barter system. In that system, everyone exchanged work for something else. One person might cook for several families; they, in turn, might plant, reap, and can the food. Another might take care of the yards, while another might do the housework for some of those who are doing something else. Everyone, even in this type of system, worked, but no one felt that the others weren't "carrying their load". Nowadays, we find some who refuse to work; they choose not to work and eat off others. I'm not talking about the people who can't work or can't find work; I'm talking about the ones who are just too lazy to do anything more than eat and sleep. I've known a couple of these, and not very many people like them or have much to do with them, after they get to know them and how they are.

So work is important, in any society, and without some kind of work, we don't last very long. And if very many people decide not to work, the society, itself, falls to pieces. Without work, nothing can exist for very long. Work really IS "a fact of life", and life isn't worth much without it!

Learn more about this author, Barbara A. Black.
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