The Hard Working Man

I believe in the hard-working man: The man that doesn’t accept a handout. The man that has a hunger to strive toward the American Dream. Coach Vince Lombardi once said, “A dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you’re willing to pay the price.”

Unfortunately through bad choices, uncontrollable events, or sheer willpower people have strayed away from hard work. Maybe it’s because of bad parenting that we don’t get off the couch to go get that job. In my experience this in fact is not the case. It’s because the kids and to my surprise adults in this day and age are lazy. People think they are entitled to a nice house and a BMW for just being a human being on this planet. They don’t want to or think they have to work for anything.

Hard work is like a gene. In some families it has been lost and in some families it lives on.

I’m in sixth grade. The bell rings and I leave the classroom to get on the bus; the sun is shining: It’s a beautiful day. I could accept the invitation forwarded to me by my neighbors to join in passing the football around outside. I respectfully decline because I know my parents would want me to get my homework done first thing after school. Doing my homework right away is a value my parents have instilled in me since the beginning of kindergarten: School comes first. At first I didn’t understand why they would make me “suffer” by having to go inside on a beautiful day and miss out on fun. Looking back on it now I see what they were trying to get at: I understand. They were just making an example to use as a building block for the rest of my life: A starting point.

Hard work is like mononucleosis: Once the virus is caught it remains there for life.

I’m sitting at my computer at ten o’clock at night writing a paper wondering where the concept of hard work went. I think about when I stopped doing my homework right after school. I’ve been blinded by the luxuries of life: I procrastinate. Deep down I know that my ethics are still in the right spot. I want to do the right thing. All I can do is hope that procrastination doesn’t become the universal cure for the disease known as hard work: I’m praying that it turns out to be the other way around; However, I know that I’m the only one that can make that decision.

Words once wisely chosen by President Barack Obama state that, “We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don’t want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential.” This is the time for change. We are the future: The kids of America.