My grandmother had many favorite colorful sayings, but one of them always made me cringe. Toward the end of her life when she was deep into Alzheimer’s disease, she lived with us for a time and she would repeat this phrase over and over:
“We’re not here to play, to dream, to drift. We’ve got work to do and loads to lift!”
“Okay grandma,” I would respond with teenage eye rolling. After all, while I consider myself a hard worker, I’m totally committed to playing, dreaming and drifting! I think humans have a unique capacity for contemplation and play that fuels our creativity and spirituality. I think kids and adults need to slow down together and do less running around, focus less on work.
But my late grandmother, born in 1908, wasn’t talking about the kind of work I do, sitting at a computer or driving to meetings. Work for her was planting, scrubbing, sweeping, canning, gathering wood, trudging through a freezing snowstorm in Western Pennsylvania to get to the greenhouses where she tended plants, cut flowers and ran a business with my grandpa.
Her less than high school education prevented her from working in an office, yet she was a very articulate, literate and wise person. My father also grew up working physically hard, and was out in the cotton fields picking cotton for his sharecropping parents every hot summer of his Depression era childhood in Arkansas.
While my dad had some advantages that many of his generation did not (race, gender) enabling him to eventually access higher education, those early years of physical labor instilled in him a work ethic most people I know don’t have.
Now there are many folks in our community and around the world who work too physically hard. They toil at physical labor and are not even paid a living wage. Their survival depends on dawn to dusk strenuous effort. I’m not trying to glamorize that kind of life. but I do think many of us, myself included, have lost our appreciation for the body, mind and spiritual benefits of good old fashioned physical work.
As we move up the formal education and economic chain, we tend to spend more time inside in sedentary jobs, staring at computer screens, driving, on the phone, Skyping meetings, texting,. Not that these activities don’t constitute work. Believe me, I spend many late nights clicking away on reports and answering emails and probably put in more work hours a day than did my parents since I am always “plugged in”. But I admit I don’t put much time in doing the physical kinds of work that my ancestors did — carrying water, washing clothes by hand, cooking meals from scratch, walking miles to get places, milking cows, planting gardens large enough to feed my family.
While I appreciate modern conveniences, I actually think some of this work is healthy stuff that is missing from our lives. Not only do these practices keep us moving, lifting, walking and digging (more physically active), they inspire an appreciation from whence our food comes and how things are made, resulting in more value and less waste.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, over one-third of all Americans are obese, and even more are overweight. Many things that have contributed to the “inflating” of our people, like diet, lack of exercise, disconnection from growing food, stress and a departure from physical labor. While there are some studies that tie large amounts of manual labor performed year after year to increases in chronic disease (heart disease), those are in more extreme cases of physical labor. For the most part our sedentary occupations, even those that include a lot of standing, (lack of physical labor) are contributing to the obesity and associated chronic disease epidemics.
Furthermore, studies also tie physical activity with purpose to some improved mental health, particularly in depression/anxiety management As I think about the periods in my life I have fallen into low spirits, low energy, stress or even bouts of mild depression*, what was often absent was that kind of hard work my grandmother was talking about. What helps me feel better often is just doing something physical — diving into a hands-on project that gives a sense of satisfaction and purpose and distracts me from my thoughts and worries, like gardening or cleaning. We rarely teach or expect our children to do regular physical work anymore.
When I do ask my kids to pitch in, cutting the lawn, hauling branches or even cleaning bathrooms, their initial protests usually subside and soon enough they come sweaty, dirty and bragging with satisfaction about the work they’ve accomplished. They feel valued, independent and a crucial part of the household. They may not know they need this, but they do.
We are so worried about protecting and coddling our kids, giving them more than we had and enabling them to reach their “full potential.” We often forget that part of helping a little person grow into an independent and successful adult is teaching them the value of hard work, including physical labor. So this weekend, if you have the time, put yourself and your kids to work, even just a couple of hours, sweeping the porch, mowing the lawn, weeding the garden. I promise you will reap the health benefits, both physical and mental, of a job well done. Then go out and play because Tu Salud ¡Si Cuenta! (Your Health Matters!)
*Warning: Depression that lasts longer than a short time and affects your ability to work or care for yourself requires medical attention!
