Always do work that makes you proud
Dr Vernon Coleman
Always do work that you can be proud of and always take pride in the work that you do.
If bread is the staff of life then work is the rock upon which a healthy mind is built. Work is the central foundation upon which you can build a happy, contented and satisfying life.
You will find that many people around you do work which they hate and despise. They do their work purely for financial reward but because they have no pride in what they do their days are pointless, empty and meaningless.
Too many people are imprisoned by what they do; they do not exist outside their work and yet their work removes the soul from their spirit and leaves them cold, dull and lifeless. Millions move aimlessly through their days with only broken hopes and vanishing dreams to help sustain them through a constant stream of frustrations and disappointments. Millions are inspired by bitterness and envy rather than hope or joyful ambition. Millions spend their lives walking along windowless, endless corridors that take them from birth to retirement to death and never allow them to taste the pleasures of achievement or the inspiration of attainment.
A century ago the working man laboured long, hard and honestly to earn money to buy bread, coal and other essentials. Today the working man labours long and hard in order to satisfy his created wants rather than his real needs. Today, the working man works had not because he needs the money he earns but because he thinks he needs the things that the money will buy.
Look around you and you will see men and women selling their lives so that they can buy possessions they have been encouraged to covet. You will see men and women squabbling, moaning and whining as they work. You will see men and women working as little as they have to; stealing moments from their employers as subsidiary recompense for their wasted lives. You will see men and women doing work they are ashamed of and you will see men and women who hold themselves, and their own work, in contempt. You will see men and women who are not interested in making good products or offering a good service. You will see men and women who gain nothing and give nothing from their labours.
You will see millions of men and women who have prostituted their minds and their bodies to pay for badly made goods, produced by others who have prostituted their minds and their bodies to make them.
Look around and you will see that not even men and women who have creative jobs are above all this. You will see architects who design buildings in which they would not dream of living. You will see film directors selling their talents to those who want to sell worthless products. Time and time again you will see artists selling their skills, their spirits, their pride and their integrity for a handful of silver.
Look around and you will see broken hopes, lost dreams and engrained bitterness. Look around and you will see people living their lives through others; you will see people who live through their television sets or through the imagined and exaggerated exploits of their heroes or through games they play on a computer. Look around and you will see faces that show fear, obedience, hidden anger and uncertainty. You will see eyes that are hollow, dull and empty of every valuable human emotion. Look around and you will see people making products which they know to be either useless or harmful. You will see people maintaining bureaucratic structures which exist only to defend their own existence.
Always remember that what you do and how you do it is more important than your job title, what you earn or your position in the hierarchy.
A man may call himself a lawyer but if he spends all his days in a dull office making money out of creating unhappiness and maintain the indecencies of the system then he has little cause for true pride.
A policeman who spends the day beating young demonstrators over the head with his truncheon may claim that he is helping to preserve society but no high flown phrase can disguise the fact that he has spent the day beating passionate young people over the head with a truncheon.
An advertising copywriter may drive an expensive motor car and wear expensive clothes but if he spends his days writing lies and creating deceitful campaigns designed to create greed and need, he has little cause for self-satisfaction.
Always remember that success and profits never excuse hurtful or destructive behaviour. Remember that it is too easy to claim that the end will justify the means. Remember that it is no excuse to say that someone has to do it. ‘If it wasn’t me it would be someone else’ is no excuse for a man or a woman who wants to live and die proud.
Look around you and you will see men and women working not with machines but for them. You will see men and women who have allowed machines to become superior to them.
Look around and you will see men and women who have dedicated their lives to jobs which they clearly find neither satisfying nor worthwhile.
Look around and you will see men and women who smile only when their work is over.
Try to be different. Try to remain always true to yourself. Always retain pride in what you do. Try to remain self-sufficient. Earn what you need but never by selling you soul or your spirit. Sell your body before you sell your mind or your integrity.
Remember that the gardener may not earn as much as the insurance executive but he may be infinitely richer.
Run your life with pride. Do nothing that you regard as degrading or worthless.
Vernon’s Law
It doesn’t matter what you do for a living. What matters is how proud you are of what you do.
This essay is taken from Vernon Coleman’s book `Toxic Stress’. To purchase a copy either visit the bookshop on www.vernoncoleman.com or CLICK HERE
Copyright Vernon Coleman May 2025
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