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Real Answers™
gh132
Copyright: © 2010 Gary Hardaway
700 words

WE ALL NEED TO FEEL USEFUL

By:  Gary Hardaway

A friend of mine recalls growing up in a well-organized home where the four children each had many assigned chores every day. On one occasion his parents took in a foster boy of about three years old. In the evening, as the kids and their mom systematically went about preparing for supper, this little tyke, who was closely watching all this activity, suddenly burst into tears. Banging his spoon on the table, he proclaimed, “I want job! I want job!” They quickly gave him something to do.

There’s an inborn impulse inside the human heart that longs to do something useful. We need to work; we need to contribute. We feel unfulfilled if we don’t produce something of value. 

But this innate drive can be snuffed out.

Many years ago, when I was a juvenile probation officer, a young man almost eighteen was arrested for burglary, and I got the case. I soon learned that he was recently married. He had gotten his girlfriend pregnant, and, in his mind, was manfully trying to take care of her and the expected child.

Hoping to help, I decided to steer him toward getting a job. But when I broached the subject, the blood visibly drained from his face.  Ashen – and quivering – he literally could not visualize himself working. He and his wife had been on welfare all their lives, as had their parents. The possibility of earning a living had been absolutely extinguished from this young man’s consciousness.

Some would label this guy a lazy bum. But what I saw was not laziness but terror – panic. He felt totally incompetent to function in the real world. He had been neutered of initiative, conditioned to believe he had no talent, no ability or potential.

This summer, my 14 year-old grandson, Evan, has his first real job. For five weeks, four hours a day, Monday through Saturday, he’s working in our local raspberry harvest.  He’d like to work more, but state law limits fourteen year-olds to four hours a day. However, there’s an upside to the limit. It enables the farm to hire twice as many young people, 450 kids total, for either the morning or afternoon shifts.

Evan is grateful for the chance to make some money. And, in so doing, he’s growing up now, leaving childhood behind, journeying toward adulthood at a faster pace.  

For the first time in several years, he’ll miss attending basketball camp. He had to make a choice. Unlike Yogi Berra, when we come to a fork in the road, we’ve got to choose. It’s a valuable lesson for a 14 year-old.  That’s the way life is.

Seventy years ago, President Roosevelt assured us that everyone has a “right” to a job – a dazzling example of wishful thinking. Jobs don’t appear by magic. They emerge through somebody’s vision, energy, and creativity.  A job is a privilege, gained because somebody else invested a lot of blood, sweat, toil, and tears in an enterprise.

In this dreary era, we hear politicians constantly promising “Jobs, Jobs,” as if the government has a magic wand. In May a paltry 41,000 jobs were created in the private sector. Business thrives only when government deliberately encourages entrepreneurial vision, investment, and risk-taking. Business dies when saddled with high taxes, costly regulations, and complicated bureaucratic red tape.

Government then compounds the problem by doling out endless unemployment benefits. A certain percentage of able-bodied citizens decide to quit seeking work in favor of perpetual “free lunch,” (paid for by the rest of us). 

There’s no easy solution, but a rule from the early Christian Scriptures still makes good sense: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.” Hunger is a powerful motivator!

Evan is pretty lucky. He has what many millions of Americans desperately wish they had – a real job, with a real paycheck. But he’s also going to experience the satisfaction of helping to bring 50 million tons of delicious fruit to market. That sense of accomplishment is priceless.

That’s one reason I’ll be driving a truck, hauling some of those tons from the field to the refrigeration plant.  Old guys still need to feel useful too.

Gary Hardaway, a regular contributor to the Amy Internet Syndicate, directs Summit School of Ministry in Bellingham, WA.

"Real Answers™" furnished courtesy of The Amy Foundation Internet Syndicate. To contact the author or The Amy Foundation, write or E-mail to: P. O. Box 16091, Lansing, MI 48901-6091; amyfoundtn@aol.com

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