the value of work

My dad was of the opinion that boys belong on the farm, so every summer during my early teens I was "farmed out" to some rancher in northern North Dakota. My pay was board and room. Several years later I earned $1 a day during harvest. Wow! In col­lege I washed and waxed floors in several small stores down town Seattle. What did I make? I haven't the faintest idea. In any case it helped me make it through and get a degree from the university. I'm a Husky.
       But did I, by any chance, get anything else for hours in the hot sun and for working on my knees at night? Charles F Kettering would say, Yes. He writes, "The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it" Well, I'm glad that $1 a day or proportionately more later on was not the full benefit. There were additional benefits that can be evaluated only over time. Here are a few:
       I found that I could finish a job. Shocking grain is hard but shocking corn is even worse. The bundles are heavier and don't want to be moved. A cornfield looks awfully big to a boy of 14 re­sponsible to shock the whole field. And the strings cut into young hands more used to playing the piano than dragging bundles around. But the farmer said, "Shock it" and the corn called out, "Come and get me," so there was nothing to do but go ahead and get it done. Fun ? Of course not. High monetary reward? Silly question. Any advantage for the boy? Yes. He learns that some things in this life simply need to be done and there is no easy way to get around it. Valuable lesson for a life still to be lived.
       Here's another benefit for simply going ahead and doing it. You'll find it isn't as difficult as you thought it would be. How many pleasant experiences are missed by backing off just because something looked tedious? How refreshing to discover that there is an unexpected pleasure in doing what is necessary. A task is rarely as hard as you thought it would be (except shocking corn perhaps!). What is difficult is to get going. So don't judge how difficult something is until you've done it.
       One more observation. As you take on the tasks of life you are building character. I know that sounds like a lousy reward, but it's true. A person is the sum total of all his decisions. Character is the final score – the only thing you take with you into the next world. You may have thought you had some things, but where are they now? "No pockets in a shroud” they say. But you do take with you what you really are, your character. That is "the highest reward for a person's toil." Ruskin is right.