Short essay on – All labour is useful

Few men are so strong as they who do the hardest kinds of work. Rich people who lead a life of ease and comfort are always ailing. While a man is at work, he is doing three good things: he is getting a living, exercising his mind and keeping himself strong and healthy. All labour is, therefore, useful. People with industrious habits always succeed in life. Industry and perseverance move mountains.

Work is worship. All work is sacred. All work has in it a spiritual element. These are no empty words. The truth of these words has been tested on the anvil of man’s experience extending over thousands of years.

Work, good work, in all its forms, is more acceptable to God than the most eloquent prayer that has ever been offered up from a pulpit. It is work that shuts out from our minds the temptations of the world. Bernard Shaw used to say, “To steer is heaven, to drift is hell. Give me a programme and the means of reaching the goal and I shall not bother about anything in the world.”

God helps those who help themselves. To have nothing to make or break, to be idle, makes life dull and meaningless. When young boys and girls have nothing to do and they do not know how to spend their time, they either start quarrelling with one another or think of mischief.

A wise man has aptly said, “Hell is another name for perpetual holiday.” We can build up a happy and prosperous India only if all of us work our hardest with our hands and brains.

All kind of labour is honourable. The man who works with a hammer is as much to be respected as he who writes with a pen. A nation of clerks and lawyers would starve. It is through agricluture and manfactures that the country can be enriched. We are all different parts of a machine, we all have to work to keep the machine in good order.

To labour with one’s own hands has an ennobling effect on character. At Shantiniketan, each student was required to wash his clothes and utensils and dust his room. But the artificial “gentlemanliness” of the students forced the founder to change this rule and engage servants.

How ignoble it is to have to depend on others for what we need for ourselves! Said Abranam Lincoln, “If the Almighty had ever meant a set of men that should do all of the eating and none of the work; He would have made them with mouths only and no hands.

And if he had meant another class to do all the work and no eating. He would made them with hands only and no mouths.” Limbs are given for use, to keep them idle is to abuse them. True honour lies in the pride of being able to do one’s own job by one’s own self.

Man is born to work and prosper in life. He, like steel, shines in use and rusts in rest. Work exalts a man if done honestly. Those who labour and toil are, sooner or later, rewarded with luck and success. Work in youth makes for happiness in old age.

Idleness in youth leads to repentance in old age. If all workers were to down their tools for a month or even a week the production of essential goods in the world would suffer a heavy blow.

The food that sustains us, the clothes that protect us against heat and cold, and the homes where we live and sleep are all the result of the labours of the working classes all over the world.

However humble a work may be, there is nothing dishonourable in it. Idleness is undignifying of a man fit for work. Work provided it is honest work, brings its own reward in the shape of health, joy and satisfaction. Idle hands and idle brain, on the other hand, are the devil’s workshop.