Or find a cushy position with a good salary.
Because “making money,” preferably out of thin air, has become prestigious. Although this is fundamentally wrong, and as my wise grandmother used to say, “There is no shameful work, shame is when you don’t work.” After the Great Patriotic War, the generation of my grandmothers and grandfathers, who were quite young then, took on any job – the country needed to be rebuilt. When did this enthusiasm and desire to work for the good of society wane? About thirty years ago, everyone suddenly wanted to get a higher education, regardless of what they would become, as long as it wasn’t manual labor. The market couldn’t handle such a large number of “white-collar workers,” people with diplomas but no practical skills.
But the “collar” wearers didn’t give up, ready not to work at all, just to avoid “defiling” themselves with physical labor. And the next generations – the children of the “collar” wearers – don’t even want to study. They simply dream of a beautiful life.
Poor upbringing has turned into total egoism for thousands of human units in the country, an unwillingness to move a finger not even for society, but even for themselves. During the May holidays, I observed how my neighbors’ dacha family, who a few years ago came together to plant potatoes, this year “hired a person to work.” Their children run around and have fun, playing badminton. From childhood, they already know that “it’s easier to pay” and that someone else should work for them. Such a “lordly” attitude leaves an unpleasant aftertaste. What kind of attitude towards labor can children form if their parents “hire” and “pay”? Is labor, which once turned a monkey into a human, no longer prestigious?
Don’t celebrate too soon. Artificial intelligence, which has so rapidly entered our lives, will soon render a huge number of professions obsolete. And today, I would advise young people not to grimace at the word “physical labor.” Plumbers, nurses, welders, auto mechanics, farmers – will soon be worth their weight in gold. But, of course, those among them who can be called true professionals. And, by the way, the full version of the saying about dying horses sounds like this: “Horses die from work, but people grow stronger.”