223 – The Virtues Of Hard Work - a podcast by Alf Herigstad

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The Virtues Of Hard Work…
I want to take a second and talk about a message I received yesterday from a regular listener named Les.  It made my whole day.  Les bought a copy of my book, Forging A Man.  Les has two young daughters and he started reading a chapter of the book to them as bedtime stories each night.He told me about one story in particular that had a profound effect on them and even had them moved to tears.  He went on to say that they are getting a lot from the lessons each story has as well.  This is exactly the kind of thing I envisioned when I was writing this book.  It can be used as a tool to impact other people.  Not just men, or boys—but women, and as Les has testified, even little girls will get value from these stories.  It’s called Forging A Man, but these stories are really about just being human, regardless of gender.
So thank you Les for sharing your experience with me.  I would love to hear other stories like that from other readers just write:  alf@beingbetter.men.  If you have not gotten your copy yet, there is a link directly to it in the show notes of this episode.Today I want to talk about the virtue of good old fashioned back breaking hard work.  It’s something many people tend to avoid these days.  There are many people who have never actually done excruciatingly hard physical labor in their whole life.  These are soft times we live in.  We buy our food already prepared.  Our clothes come ready to wear, and the buildings we live in are just there…when something goes wrong we call someone else to fix it.
As a species we are becoming more and more distant from our physical roots.  We have forgotten that our bodies are dynamic, useful tools capable of great industry.  Some people compensate by going to the gymand working out real hard.  They do that because it feels good.  Hard work releases endorphins in your brain that make you feel good.  Hard physical labor does the same thing.
I’m thinking about this today because a couple days ago I helped my brother on a job.  A huge fir tree was cut down in a widow’s yard and she was paying my brother to remove it.  I need more firewood for winter so I agreed to help.  When I say it was a huge tree I am not exaggerating.  It was over three feet in diameter at the base and over 100 feet long.  It was cut into 16 inch sections, but each round of wood weighed several hundred pounds because they were so huge.We had to split the rounds into smaller pieces just so we could handle them.  I have a massive sledge hammer, it has a 20 pound head.  All day I used this hammer to drive a steel wedge into the wood to split it up.  Then we had to load it on a trailer and drive it back to our place, it took several trips.
It was a warm day and it was back-breaking, dirty work.  Each time I swung that hammer it seemed to suck a little more life from my bones.   The pieces of wood got heavier and heavier as the day went on.  We were covered in sticky tree pitch and we were sweating profusely.  It was a good thing we finished when we did because my right arm was about to give out.  It had lifted that hammer so many times it was almost completely spent.You know what though?  It felt good.  There is something about pushing your body and mind to the point of physical failure that is extremely rewarding.  Not only that, but I have a huge pile of firewood for the winter.  A wood fire is the only source of heat we use in our house.  This winter when it is freezing outside and we are cozy and warm by our fire, I will remember this day.  I’ll remember how it felt, and it will feel good all over again.  Now, two days later I have a few sore spots, but I don’t mind at all.
I’m talking about the virtue of hard work because it is something that historically, has been a manly undertaking.  Of course women can work hard too—and they do.  There is a certain type of hard work that men have...

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