Work

Some years ago, I can't remember when precisely, my father was talking about work. For those of you who know my father, or have heard me talk about him to the point that you think you know him, this is not an odd topic of conversation. My dad is a firm believer in hard work and has striven to ingrain this message in his children. I now relate the following story to evaluate his efforts:
In Relief Society on Sunday we were talking about work. I shared the thought that my father had two philosophies about work that surfaced several times through my life: 1) Hard work will cure almost any pain, and 2) You can work mad or you can work happy, but you still have to work. Some of the girls were obviously skeptical of this advice. But, the next day was FHE and we were going to play Volleyball. When I got to FHE I had a bit of a stomach ache (might have been the three gallons of cocoa I had) and I wasn't too excited about playing. But, I remembered what I had said the day before in Relief Society and I played anyway. Within twenty minutes, I had forgotten about the pain (which had, in fact, subsided) and the game became much more fun. My roommate Candy was aware of the pre-game stomach ache and about 30 minutes into the game she asked me if I was okay. I explained that I was feeling better. Another girl around us asked if I had been feeling ill. I explained that I had, but that I've been better since I started playing. She answered back by saying, "Wow. I guess your dad was right after all." This remark indicated to me that she hadn't believed the advice yesterday, but today, after seeing it in action, she came around to the idea of considering it. It's progress. :)
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Now that I have expressed how wonderful work is, I would like to clarify. Hard, manual labor is good; work that requires an abundance of how-to knowledge, a steady hand, and wearing scrubs is good; tedious, mind-power-necessitating, work is the root of all unhappiness in my life. :) I have found that I really don't mind manual labor (most of the time), but I really don't like busy work. Yes, I am talking about homework mostly. I don't like it! Give me a shovel and a ditch to dig or the anticubital region of someone's arm with rolling veins any day over some silly, illogical, fill-in-the-blank questions in Spanish. Just sayin'. :)
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"What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger."
or "What doesn't kill you makes you wish it had."
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
or "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll have to buy a boat."
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
or
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Today's Featured Quote:
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people I had to kill because they ticked me off."

A pleasant day of working to everyone. :)