“He who works with his hands is a laborer.
He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.
He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist." — St. Francis Of Assisi”
We all have dreams. Goals are dreams broken down into achievable steps. The implementation of these steps is work. We can either do all of the work ourselves or depend on others assist in doing the work. In order to get others to help you in your work, you have to line up their goals and yours. This means you have to know what their dreams are and what they want to do. If you hire someone, you give them money with which they can fund their own goals and dreams. People with addictions forget these dreams and goals -or perhaps look for shortcuts to their goals - they cut corners and break rules because they are chasing unattainable realities.
Let’s say as a Homesteader you decide to cut firewood. You have to tools and the truck and the trees, you need labor. You can hire a wino down the road to help, you can ask your friends and family to help, or you can do it yourself.
While the wino who works for a pittance seems cheap he is by no means a sustainable source of labor - he is likely to hurt himself or tear up your tools. He is also likely as not unhealthy and can give you diseases. He is also going to be around valuables you may own and many alcoholics are prone to steal when low on funds for booze. All in all it’s best to steer away from addicts as they end up costing more than they are worth.
Your friends and family are always a good source of labor because, being friends and family, they should like to spend time with you. It strengthens the ties that you feel with them and gives you opportunities to know and appreciate each other. In most cases they are sharing the benefit of your production they should be inclined to assist whole heartedly. But in some cases they are either unable physically to help with some jobs, they are otherwise occupied into their own goals and plans, or they just don't want to work with or without you. These relationships bear looking closer into to decide if they are ones you want to continue into the future. The purpose of friends and family are to help each other towards eventual dreams and goals and when you have those who are supposed to be in league with you who are not willing to help then the whole relationship needs to be examined. This being said sometimes friends and family can fall short even when their best efforts are applied. Sometimes they don’t like to work with you because you work harder and longer than they are interested in working or at too quick a pace or at too slow a pace or any number of reasons that makes their goal to get out of helping you.
This leaves you to do all the work and cut all the wood, load all the wood, split all the wood, and stack all the wood. This is taxing physically. Your muscles will ache your hands will blister; you will twist your ankle and skin you knuckles and cuss like a sailor (which is part of why your friends and family didn't want to help you to begin with). You will push yourself to exhaustion and beyond. You will get into a zone where you press onwards with your work and ignore distractions -like the sun going down or being hungry. You will drive on as long as you are capable and collapse in the bed at night just to stir early the next morning preparing for another day of labor. In single-minded numbness to the rest of the world you are mission focused - no time to sharpen the saw, no need to stop for lunch you are better than half done now...
Till you either get done or you fall apart physically. There’s nothing wrong with work and hard work but to get too focused on one thing is most likely not conducive to your health or the eventual goal.
I have sinned against my brother the ass. Also St. Francis Of Assisi -speaking on his deathbed about how he had abused and misused his physical body is his spiritual work.
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