Telling kids who don’t even know how to work hard that they shouldn’t, sets them up for failure. Work harder, continue to, and then work smarter.
“Teaching kids how to work physically hard is one of the most underrated gifts you can give them.
It’s a cheat code in today’s world because not only are many unwilling, they don’t even know how to.
Work smarter not harder is nonsense.
Work harder and then work smarter.”
-Ray Zingler on X
I write about hard work a lot.
It’s not only because of how much I love it, but how deeply important I believe it to be especially in the modern era, where you don’t technically have to work (physically) hard.
In 2024, you can make a living from a chair like the one I am sitting in writing this post, at your house.
You can have all your “food” delivered and every one of your household needs met, by somebody else.
From HVAC maintenance to laundry services, you can have all your needs met without working physically hard.
And when your sedentary lifestyle starts to best you, if you make enough money on the interwebs, you can even have doctors, clinicians, and therapists come to you to “fix” you.
What a time to be alive!
While I am as grateful as the next person for modern technology, it’s critically important to our existence to work physically hard.
It’s how we evolved to get to where we are today.
The human being was designed to work. And to work damn hard.
So, despite lacking the “need” to work hard in the modern era, hard work is no less critical to our existence than it was thousands of years ago when we manually hunting our food and carrying water in baskets atop our heads for miles. (There are some cultures who still do this today, and guess what – none of their people are obese.)
On top of the critical importance to a successful, healthy, meaningful life, there are crazy financial advantages to knowing how and being willing to work hard during an era where most people won’t.
Your roofers and mechanics haven’t 2x’d their prices because of inflation.
They’ve 2x’d their prices because they can. Because nobody else is willing to do what they do.
You can bitch about the price of an oil change all day long, but are you willing to do it? I didn’t think so.
If you want to give your kids access to a happy, healthy life, teach them, no I’m sorry, LEAD them by example by way of hard, physical labor.
As time progresses, there will be no bigger “life cheat code” than the ability and willingness to work physically hard.
