Large portions of the population don't want to work

Large portions of the population don’t want to work.

Ideally, work would be emotionally, intellectually, and physically stimulating. It would involve a compelling mission with loyal peers and exemplary leadership you could trust. It would make the world a better place. That is the heroic path to work.

But most work is none of those things.

It’s a dirty, boring, backbreaking slog under bad lighting with miserable people that has marginal or negative effects on society. Yuck.

All my life I’ve chosen the heroic path, and I will tell you, it is not the most profitable path, but it is the most fulfilling. I pick my work based on my values and then apply my considerable talents to make money at it, even if everyone says it’s impossible.

And sometimes they are right.

I make the most money when I have friends who encourage me to monetarily value my work far more highly than I normally do. (Thanks @limitlessleila, @JoshuaLisec, and @JohnHaskinsJr)

But as a good friend, @curtdoolittle, has said to me several times. “We have options open to us that the average man cannot access. We can take risks and recover because we can. Most cannot.”

The intellectual is often a lonely and odd person with little to no connection to reality or the common man. To have a long career, their complaints and ideas must be untestable and so abstract that they cannot be disproven.

Their ideas about the world and the common man’s supposed lack of work ethic come from the arrogance that not requiring caliousus enables.

But not me; I’ve been in the trenches. Laid stone, blocks, bricks, and tiles; swung a hammer in the heat of summer; and mixed mortar in the cold of a Canadian winter. Hunted and killed the things I’ve eaten. Run businesses, hired and fired people. Fought to be paid, fought to not have my hard-earned money stolen by dangerous men. Been sick, disabled, hungry, cold, poor, and nearly homeless.

“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” - Philippians 4:12

And I know what makes people tick. What they want, need, and fear. Even better than that, I know how to help people get what they want. So no, I don’t think the average man is lazy. Instead I know that he is beaten down, lied to, confused, and disheartened.

He doesn’t want to do the work needed because he feels that it’s all pointless. That’s not laziness; it’s despair.

I feel keenly the noblesse oblige. The deep sense of obligation to help those of my people, who have not been granted the good nature, strong will, and high intellect that my ancestors granted me.

You are not lazy. You are not broken. You are merely unfinished. Incomplete and discouraged.

So I will keep bringing you courage and teach you completeness as a meta father.

And I call all mature men to the same path. This is the heroic work of our times. To bring courage to the weak and wisdom to the unfinished.

We are shifting from a time of great threats to a time of great opportunity. Grab hold of what you can. Make the next 4 years work for you. Tell me what you need help with to do that, and if I can, I will help you.

“Be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded.” - 2 Chronicles 15:7