Celebrating labor

Labor Day — a long weekend that traditionally marks the end of summer. From here on, we settle into the regular autumn routines (although this year nothing is regular or routine).

Labor Day is about celebrating workers. Because if nobody worked, we wouldn’t eat, have anywhere to live or have or do much of anything else. In a very real sense, labor makes life possible. (How Labor Day began.)

Unless you’re in some futuristic sci-fi thing where robots do all the work and humans just lounge about all day, every day. But then where’s the purpose of keeping humans around?

We were in a very real sense created to work. To labor. To fashion things that didn’t exist before.

The goal of labor

For some, labor is about putting in time for a paycheck. For others, what they do is a labor of love — a source of accomplishment.

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” — Steve Jobs

Back when I worked in a harbor, there was a kid, fresh out of high school, on the team. He was the youngest among us. And so often, at quitting time, he’d lean on his shovel and exclaim: “One day closer to retirement.”