Thankful Thursday #4 – A Washer of Dishes: Understanding The Value Of Work Makes All Work Valuable
I like to work. I like to do projects. I like to engage in hobbies. I like to dig into my academic and professional undertakings with focus and fervor. I’ve been a lot of things before I was an educator. Among those things, and among my favorites, I was a washer of dishes. I spent many hours wearing heavy leather aprons, standing at triple sinks, washing, rinsing, and sanitize repeatedly.
One summer I washed dishes in the kitchen of a sleep away camp. We had an industrial restaurant-quality dishwasher with a big silver trap and a shiny lever. I can viscerally recall the sensation of lifting the lever, sliding a tray in, closing the trap, listen for and watching the spray and steam, pulling the trap open and sliding the sweltering, clean plates, cups, and bowl out from within. I enjoyed that.
Washing dishes has its brand of reward. When you are a washer of dishes you take dirty things and make them clean. Most of the time it’s pretty straightforward. Sometimes, however, the dirty things remain dirty even after you’ve washed them. When that happens, you pick away at the lingering dirt, you wash and rinse again, and voilà…on the second go around you’ve still made dirty things clean. In the end, if you persist, when you are a washer of dishes, you eventually do the task you’ve set out to do. Afterwards, you organize clean things neatly on shelves and in cupboards, and then your job is complete…until people eat again, which the inevitably do. People who wash dishes will always be in high demand.
It was a good job for me. It was fulfilling and I did it well. It was a job in which I had the opportunity to spend hundreds of hours deep in thought, and not just deep in any thought either. Dishwashing thought was highly meditative for me. It was meditative because similar to other forms of medication, a washer of dishes is focused, but not on anything in particular. His mind is free to drift as it pleases. While washing dishes, especially for extended periods of time, my mind would wander along waves of thought, connected but somehow independent of my surroundings. Dishwashing can be loud and relatively isolating. Often times I would find myself in a zone of reflective thinking that seemed to generate and perpetuate itself. It was freeing. It was relaxing. It solidified some of my initial development with regard to reflective processing. I was proud of the work that I did as a washer of dishes, I received regular accolades from my efforts, and I was explicitly gratified after each shift. Again, it was a wonderful job for me.
It may have been the period of my life. I might not feel the same gratification as a washer of dishes today. In fact, I fight having to do the chore in my home. Sometimes when you grow up you lose sight of the simple pleasures and basic realities of life. However, when I do end up in front of the sink for extended periods, the feeling comes back. I’m telling you, washing dishes is meaningful. Is it possible that any task is meaningful, and that all work, when done with a commitment to quality and the perception of purpose, is meaningful?
One of my sons tells me that he wants to be a chef and another tells me that he wants to be a dinosaur. I want the best for both. Who am I to suggest that one type of work is elevated over another? Who am I to even consider trying to dissuade any kid from projecting value as related any type of work, be it the work of a chef, or even work that’s beyond my capacity to fully comprehend…such as that of a dinosaur.
Maybe it’s my job to remember what wonders, magic, and meaning I found while working those many years as a washer of dishes, and then to encourage, support, and celebrate when I see others discovering the abundant and joyful remunerations of work itself. Maybe.
Please join me all day tomorrow using the hashtag #thTHX as we share our gratitude with expressions of why we love our work and how it enhance our lives. Happy Thankful Thursday everyone (click highlighted text for a link to more)!
Live. Learn. Lead.
Dream Big. Work Hard. Be Well.