THERE IS NO HONOR IN HARD WORK

“There is no honor in hard work?was a statement hurled at me many years ago by a hippie-type. I, of course, dismissed it, considering the source, despite the fact that the young man who favored me with that piece of his mind traveled world-wide, and did pretty much as he pleased, while I struggled to make ends meet on minimum wage and dragged myself home every night on sore feet, compliments of spending hours on a cement floor in high heels.

Through the years, his remark kept popping up in my head at the stranges times, but I comforted myself with the thought that someday, he would finally have to grow up and become like the rest of us……responsible!

It took many more years before I finally admitted to myself that what he told me was absolutely true. If you look around, it will quickly become obvious that those who work the hardest get paid the least.

Have you noticed how the people who dispense directives, which take only a few minutes (and are probably based on someone else’s ideas), get paid a lot more money than the people who actually have to figure out how to make those broad brush-stroke proclamations a reality?

More than a few office employee could probably tell you how they personally observed at least one boob get swiftly propelled up the corporate ladder just because various managers were just trying to get him out of their departments. In my salad days, I was fond of saying that a lot of fools got to the top because they were too dumb to realize they were ignorant. Although I did not know it when I said, that statement does possess a kernel of Truth.

Compensation is not based on how hard you work. It is the direct result of what value you place on yourself. Now, I am not referring to “Thinking.?We all think we deserve better, but very few of us actually believe it.

As stupid person who is convinced he is a genius will get ahead faster than an actual genius who is mired in self-doubt.

I once worked for a company where one particular sales secretary got away with murder and never suffered any consequences for her transgressions. She also got most of the perks and when it came time for raises, she always ended up with double what the rest of us got. By the time I started with the company, she was already making more money than some of the managers. You can imagine the grumbling from the other secretaries.

For my part, I thought rather than waste my time being jealous,, why don’t I emulate her, since her method was clearly more successful than mine.

I began to observe her and noticed that she frequently came in late but never stayed late to make up the time. If you asked her for something within a certain timeframe, you were much more likely to get it two days past the deadline, minus any apology for the delay. She was the only secretary with her own office (because she said she had so much work that she could not afford to be distracted) and when the company bought its first computer, it was placed in her office and the rest of us had to ask her permission to use it.

Although the other secretaries clung to relationships within their own peer group, she preferred to cultivate friendships with the company executives, often teasing them and occasionally even mildly insulting them.

The most significant difference between her and the rest of us, however, was that she exuded an aura of confidence and entitlement, which projected a message that she could get a job anywhere, anytime she wanted, so you better be good to her if you wanted to keep her. And that is what was reflected back to her. In other words, she believed that she deserved the vest of everything, and as she believed, so it was for her. She got the best of everything the company had to offer.

Now that I had her system down pat, I discovered to my disgust that I could not bring myself to imitate her because her behavior and attitude were totally outside my comfort zone.

My self-image demanded that I put in an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay (even though the pay was not always as honest as the work). In addition, I had to admit that I got some perverse enjoyment from working hard because it gave me a temporary sense of control over my life every time I overcame obstacles and beat the odds to meet a deadline. I also found that I was not comfortable being (what I considered) pushy. I needed to have my accomplishments recognized, appreciated and rewarded on merit.

Because of all these needs and wants of mine (otherwise known as a lack of self-esteem ), I kept placing myself at the mercy of other people’s good will and sense of fair play, so, of course, I always ended up disappointed.

Many of us have been brought up on the work ethic. We are constantly told that if we work hard and keep our noses clean, we will eventually have honors and their accompanying rewards heaped upon us. We keep thinking this, even though all the evidence around us screams to the contrary.

All “rewards?come from our Source (from within us) We have to come to grips with the fact that, when it comes to physical beings, everyone is looking out for their own interests, and rightfully so. It is our responsibility to ask for what we want. Since we are not apt to ask for what we do not feel we deserve, if we want our lifestyle to improve, we must cultivate that sense of self-worth first.

Once I understood the real basis of compensation and accepted the fact that it was I who was responsible for not getting my expectations met, my income rose and my work environment became more pleasant and less taxing.

I still work “hard?occasionally, but only if and when I want to.

The above is an excerpt from as book called “A Heaven On Earth?by Jenka. The first four chapters can be read online free of charge at www.jenkapublications.com .