Monday, September 1, 2014

It's Labor Day, Do Some Work Today

It's Labor Day in the United States today. That means many won't work today.

Gary North says be different:
I hate holidays — all of them, without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin. When it comes to holidays, I am not only Scrooge, I am Alastair Sim’s version of Scrooge.

A holiday is technically a holy day, i.e., a day set apart for some religious purpose. But the common feature of all American holidays is that they are days set apart for doing nothing productive. They are basically consumption days. They are excuses to consume, especially time, our only irreplaceable resource.

I make it a point to work all day on every holiday except Christmas. I only work half a day on Christmas. I sell out. The peer pressure is too great...

Two rules of economic success are these: (1) work a little bit harder than your competitors every day; (2) then allow the compounding process to give you an enormous advantage over decades...

Almost three decades ago, I wrote a manual for college students on how to do well in college. One of my recommended strategies was (and is) to do homework while everyone else is at the Big Game. If you work while everyone else is playing, you gain a permanent advantage...

If I had the votes, there would be fewer national holidays. The strongest case for national holidays that I can think of is that Congress isn’t in session on holidays. I would vote to replace every holiday with John McDonogh Day, which would allow all Federal employees to take a day off, but would let the rest of us go to work...

Next time there is a holiday, mow the lawn. Wash some windows. Organize your hard drive. Download Google’s toolbar. But do something. Anything. Say to yourself, “I am not Congress. I am productive.” Then act accordingly. Every little bit helps.

The harder you work, the richer I get. That’s capitalism.

2 comments:

  1. Do what you want during government imposted holidays.

    That being said, based upon the article "The 5 things people regret most on their deathbed," (Business Insider), I'd recommend you work less and spend more time with your loved ones instead. How many people, on their death bed, ever said "Gee, I wish I worked more"?

    Life is incredibly short. There is no good evidence that reincarnation exists. (There is evidence for reincarnation. It's just not very good. See Ian Stevenson's "20 Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation.") Nor is there any good evidence that there is any life after death or even that we have anything like a soul.

    Don't waste the one life we are positive we have. Put down your work and spend some time with your loved ones.

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  2. In the Navy, we preferred the phrase, "shit floats to the top."

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