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When I was in my 20s I lived on a bicycle for a year, going around the lower 48 and Canada, and then up to Alaska. I lived for two weeks in Joshua Tree with a g
by japhyr 6y ago
When I was in my 20s I lived on a bicycle for a year, going around the lower 48 and Canada, and then up to Alaska. I lived for two weeks in Joshua Tree with a guy named Tom, who slept in a cave the whole time.
One morning we were sorting our gear and a piece of paper fell out of his wallet. As I handed it back to him, I read the three lines on it:
Work hard.
Be strong.
Don't complain.
I asked him about it, and he said that was advice his grandfather had given him. He wrote those lines down and carried them with him to remind him of what his grandather had told him. Those words have echoed in my mind for decades now. They're not absolutes; there are times to let go of work, to let yourself not have to be strong, and times to stand up and complain and protest loudly. But the spirit of that advice has certainly been a guiding force in my life.
- lnsru 6y agoThat’s exactly the principles my grandfather thought me. But I tend to discuss, if it is still valid today.
- jriot 6y agoHow are those principles not valid today?
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y agoIt's hard to imagine this advice being given to a young woman during the grandfather's time, or even today. It comes from a time when there was a tremendous amount of hard work that needed to be done and existential wars to be fought. These burdens were placed upon the men of the society while the women were tasked with the more social and emotional work of actually keeping our families glued together and raising the next generation. This advice would have been good advice then, but today gender roles are much less rigid, and a well-rounded human understands how to balance hard work and purposeful relaxation, how to be strong and persevere and when to lean on others and be vulnerable, and knows the right time to speak up and voice one's grievances. The grandfather's advice is one formula for a certain type of masculine stoic life, but if you were to follow it too rigidly, you'd miss out a lot of the emotional richness that modern life has to offer.
- mmcnl 6y agoIs this really great advice? What if you don't feel strong? What if working hard makes you unhappy?
- sethammons 6y agoI often don’t feel strong enough, but I still have work to get done, kids to raise, a wife to support. Sometimes (most times for most people) we have to do things that don’t make us happy. Chores, bills, work, difficult conversations, break ups, supporting others who need it.
- nscalf 6y agoThat’s exactly what this advice is for. You don’t need to be reminded to be strong or work hard when you feel strong and want to work hard.
- Foober223 6y agoIt's great advice if you don't have the luxury of being a 1st world free loader.
- CamperBob2 6y ago4. End up living in a cave