Old Age And Hard Work

What's with old age and hard work?

It is a thing of trend these days to hear that the best way to work is not to work hard nor diligently but to work smart. While this totally sounds cliche, and most cliche are either erroneous or just indoctrinated excuses and nonsense, I have tried to critically look at this one.

The first thing you find when you put this cliche under the microscope of reasoning is that smart work is sorely relative, subjective, and most times ambiguous, as what is smart work to one can totally be considered hard work by another, and in the same light, what's smart work to me on certain days can be strike me as hard work on certain days depending on any number of factors.

I can't help but wonder what this generation is becoming, and how they have wrangled every value in the book to either mean something else or to have no use case today. That's by the way side as that's not my topic for today.

I just read @Bliqees latest article, where she talk about her amazing grandma. That article brought back memories as there were some commons with the things my grandparents are like. I was never really close to any of my grandparents and more so, on my mother's side of the family.

But the little time I did spend with them( in which I still didn't familiarise myself with them), I couldn't help observing them, almost like a scientist observe test subjects in a laboratory (no offense to them). I wasn't lucky enough to get any time with my grandpa from my mum's side of the family, but I do remember my grandma coming to stay with us in the city for a while on the request of my mum. My grandparents on my dad's side both also had such stints with us, some voluntary, some necessitated by health. Their personalities were as different as the sun is from the moon, but they all had one thing in common; their distaste for too much comfort.

Don't get it all wrong, they love a little comfort here, a little care there, a little rest here, a little gift there, that's all good; but give them at best a week and you begin to see the irritation and dissatisfaction they must have been trying to conceal. They just start craving that hard stressful lifestyle they left in the village, that you're trying to drag them out of.

This leaves you in a dilemma as you're afraid for their health, but they are not. They usually say things like 'they will die faster if they are doing nothing, or if they don't do that very tasking work they do as religiously as they do' just like @Bliqees grandma was saying. The interesting fact is, they actually believe that, it's not just for talks, they are convinced of the truth of it.

Since that time till date, I still haven't been able to answer the question of why, why is it so for them?

Well, over time I've come up with two hypotheses:

1. My first hypothesis is that through the many years of struggle, hardship and hard work that they've had, they have now gotten so used to struggling that it's become the only thing they know, the only way they can see everything they come across and in life. Maybe all through the hardship of life, they have had to develop themselves to be able to weather such struggles and hard work and they just can't do without it, as a smoker cannot do without cigarette. They might agree or disagree with you on how it impacts their health, but that will not stop them form say, waking by 5AM and heading to the farm, only to return by 12PM under the blazing sun. It would be really sad if this were the answer.

2. My second hypothesis is a bit less sad. I think it's possible that they might just be right to day their lives depends on these hard tasks as bad as it might be for their health. Why would I say so? The more aged humans become, the more they are treated like children, and this effectively means they have less of everything on their hands and minds.

As most of our grandparents of today knew nothing but hard jobs and tasks during their time and had to worry about allows everything, when they get to this stage of their lives when they have almost nothing to worry about, they begin to feel worthless. Think of a mansion that was built and left unused for a while, it will begin to fade and crumble piece by piece, way faster than it would have if there were occupants, that's how their minds and body becomes in old age. So, they task it to let it know it's not dormant, trying to keep body and mind sharp.

There's a another developing hypothesis as well, which is that of overcompensating. It's possible they most likely don't want to feel as old as they really are, hence their need to express youthful zeal where there's none. Under this hypothesis, it's also possible that it's all about trying not to be a burden on their loved ones.

Conclusion

The affinity of old people to hard work is a known fact for ages. It might stem from any of the hypothesis above or a combination of hypotheses, or maybe I'm completely wrong. I'm forced to ask, what do you think of it?

I would like to use this avenue to appreciate my latest sponsors @ErdoV and @remona, thank you guys for the confidence placed in me, I won't disappoint.

Thanks for all the love and support friends...