Social Question

Charles's avatar

What is hard work?

Asked by Charles (4826points) May 26th, 2012

What do you mean when you say that somebody “worked hard to get what they got”?

Person A is a villager in Indonesia, and destroys his body by the age of 40, bending over in a rice field all his life, for a dollar a day.

Person B sits in an ergonomic chair in a cubicle at a constant 72 degrees, wearing Gucci shoes, and makes as much money as 200 villagers.

Is Person B entitled to gloat “I worked hard for what I’ve got”?

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8 Answers

Blackberry's avatar

If you’re straining yourself mentally or physically. Hard work is subjective, of course.

ucme's avatar

Stephen Hawking’s personal trainer?
“Come on Stevie boy, no pain, no gain!”

digitalimpression's avatar

If person B lives around millions of others who do the same thing and did not succeed as well than sure.. gloat it up. Why not? Working hard is relative to everyone’s personal situation.

tups's avatar

Anything that makes you really tired or exhausted, but you still keep on keepin’ on.

Linda_Owl's avatar

Hard work is relative to the physical stamina necessary to get the job done. A villager in an Indonesian rice field is working very hard indeed. The office worker, on the other hand, has had educational opportunities not available to the man in the Indonesian rice field. This does not mean that he is not a hard working man, but he is using mental capabilities not shared by the uneducated man in the Indonesian rice field. The two occupations are actually not comparable. One job is intensely physical, while the other job relies on mental education. Unfortunately for the man in the rice field, he is doomed to hard physical labor which will (most likely) kill him sooner rather than later, because he did not have the opportunity to get a good education. Most ‘villagers’ in the various third-world do not have access to get an education (especially women) & so they struggle to survive. All things considered, it is surprising that many of them actually do manage to survie.

blueiiznh's avatar

You explained what person A did, but not person B.

Hard work is whatever is challenging for that person. For not taking the easy way out. To take the path that few take and no matter the outcome, just take it on for whatever passion and reason that motivates you to. It’s not about money or classes or rich or poor.

I pride myself on working hard at all I do.
just leave my Gucci shoes out of it. they did nothing to you

digitalimpression's avatar

If Matt Damon’s character would have remained a construction worker in “Good Will Hunting” it would have been tragic… yes?

People have to take the opportunities they’ve been granted and play the hand they were dealt.

Suggesting that someone doesn’t work as hard based on a station that precludes them from ever having to pluck rice from a field is quite clearly incorrect. It may not be incorrect in the physical labor sense.. but it is in the insinuation about that persons work ethic.

Disclaimer: If anything I just typed doesn’t make sense it’s Pilsner’s fault.

rooeytoo's avatar

I have done manual labor and mental labor too. Manual labor makes my body tired but no so much my brain, and mental labor vice versa.

Then can both be hard, just different.

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