Work

Man it feels good to do hard, physical work.

Of course it can be painful, it can be tiring, and once I'm a few months into the job, likely even a few days in, I'll really be feeling it and I'll just want to stay at home and sleep. But I feel more alive when I'm doing manual labour, I feel like I'm actually making use of the body and the life that I'm fortunate to have not just simply using my mind or doing things for the sake of pleasure.

Doing intellectual work, or work that involves a computer or sitting at a desk, or work that is just about organizing things, tidying, or being a body to provide customer support (jobs that usually turn into watching the clock and finding ways to kill time) is just not the same. 

From my experience writing papers or staying up all night doing programming assignments or working a bunch of customer-service-oriented jobs, you feel an initial sense of relief when you finish work like this but you don't feel the same sense of purpose or sense of accomplishment that lingers in your muscles and joints the rest of the day and makes falling asleep easy that comes from doing manual labour.

The only comparable feeling I'd say is playing competitive sports especially you win games or championships. There's just something about accomplishing something with the entirety of your body that you can't get from any other kind of pursuit in life. 

But even though playing sports is more fun and winning can be a big thrill, I'd say it feels better to look back at something you've built that makes a difference in people's lives or changes the look of an environment than winning any games. 

Sports is using your body for your own fun and pleasure, manual labour is using your body for something greater than yourself that also can be an enjoyable process if you're part of a good team (which I say I am now with the guys I worked with today).

So I'm thankful I've found and have taken this opportunity to do this kind of work, to contribute to building and improving the physical world using my physical being. 

I wish that more people saw the value in doing this kind of work and there was more incentive from the education and economic system to do creative, productive work rather than just doing work to make money (or not doing any work at all). There's not much I can do about this right now but I'm glad to be where I am now.

My beat-up, worn-down self will probably laugh and curse at reading this first-day-of-the-job optimism in a few weeks but hopefully he will use this for motivation to keep going :)