The Joys of Being Thoughtless

I am now employed at a job where I get work done and get adequate money. It is nothing amazing, but it is not stressful, the people are helpful, and it's flexible. Not since high school summer breaks have I had a job when I was not also thinking about upcoming assignments, exams, etc.

What I really just want to think as I type is how helpful it sometime is to do a monotonous task without having to really think about it. Having been working less than usual the last few months, I can say that I actually had more energy overall on those days when I had school and work from 9am to 12pm than when I had almost nothing to do. Work is as important for the mind as it is for the body. Without our knowing that we are doing work, we feel useless. The responses to being useless would be to do work; to enjoy being a sloth; or not to enjoy being a sloth, not work and be relatively miserable.

This job is good because it gives me a rest from thinking about things, and this rest will help me to think again more clearly, when need be.

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"Curdie spent many nights in the mine. His father and he had taken Mrs. Peterson into the secret, for they knew mother could hold her tongue, which was more than could be said of all the miners' wives.

But Curdie did not tell her that every night he spent in the mine, part of it went in earning a new red petticoat for her.

Mrs. Peterson was such a nice good mother! All mothers are nice and good more or less, but Mrs. Peterson was nice and good all more and no less. She made and kept a little heaven in that poor cottage on the high hillside for her husband and son to go home to out of the low and rather dreary earth in which they worked. I doubt if the princess was very much happier even in the arms of her huge great-grandmother than Peter and Curdie were in the arms of Mrs. Peterson. True, her hands were hard and chapped and large, but it was with work for them; and therefore, in the sight of the angels, her hands were so much the more beautiful. And if Curdie worked hard to get her a petticoat, she worked hard every day to get him comforts which he would have missed much more than she would a new petticoat even in winter. Not that she and Curdie ever thought of how much they worked for each other: that would have spoiled everything."

- The Princess and the Goblin