According to George S. Patton, “Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory.”
Hard work is tremendously important in society. Obviously, without hard work, we wouldn’t have the luxuries we have today, nor would we have the necessities, like food, shelter, and water. Whatever interactions we do, there is always someone who works, or has worked, hard in the process: whenever we buy food from the grocery store, there is initially the farm workers who have prepared the food, maybe even manufacturers who have created and designed the machinery used in said preparation process, and then there are those who have stocked the shelves and those involved in the checkout process. There is work at every point in the hierarchy.
Obviously, in each of the jobs listed there is a discrepancy in the amount of work and responsibilities entailed, but every job is equally important in the process. It is important to be grateful to each of the aforementioned positions because without them, you wouldn’t have your food. This is also generalized to any field, such as the power grid, water grid, et. al. So be grateful to these workers.
That is one of the many reasons to work hard in your position. You are a cog, likely an important one, in society. Society needs every cog to be functioning so that it can run smoothly. Sure, if you give up, there are often other people that can fill in your job for you, but then you are filling a redundant seat and simply wasting money for your employer, increasing the workload of your coworkers, who are doing more work for the same amount of pay because of your unwillingness to work hard. Your unwillingness to do hard work can be then boiled down into laziness and, ultimately, selfishness.
Hard work is not only a plus for society, but for you as a whole. Once you get finished with a hard job, like a really hard job, and do it right, you will feel the “exhilaration” and satisfaction of finishing a job for the day, and you will be rewarded for that, whether it be only for the feelings of satisfaction, or by compensation from your employer.
So go out, work hard, not only for the benefit of you, but for the benefit of society! And be grateful for those in society that work hard, so that we may reap the benefits from them!
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10 (ESV)