My house cleaner is here this morning, chasing me from place to place as she works. At this stage of my life and with my back issues, she is worth her weight in gold to me, and I find myself wondering why we demean manual labor and elevate desk work or intellectual meanderings such as I do. I know when the power went out the other Sunday, I didn’t want a theologian or an IT specialist to; I wanted a courageous lineman who was willing to go out in that terrible wind and fix downed wires.
The thing is, we are all important. No one of us can do or learn everything. We all have our part to play, and rather than comparing apples and oranges, we need to be far more grateful for the many services others provide for us. We also need to be openly grateful, thanking store clerks, our trashmen, our road workers, etc., when we have the opportunity. The real tragedy of our economy, however, is that we put values and rankings on jobs and think some are worth so much more than others. But, let me tell you, when I am standing in front of a self-check-out at the grocery store and have an item that won’t go through the system, I am very grateful for the person who comes to bail me out, even if he or she isn’t a college graduate. I just wish they’d get paid what they are worth.
There was a time when I resisted tipping, thinking that the owner of whatever business it was should pay their employees a living wage, but I’ve become a tipper these days. I tipped the gals who pushed my wheelchair in the airport. I leave tips for the cleaning women in hotels or motels where I stay. I tip servers at restaurants, whether their service is exemplary or not. I want them to know just how much I appreciate what they are doing to make my life so rich and fulfilled.
We need each other. We need each other desperately. And we need those invisible people in the background that we never see or meet but whose work makes the various services that enrich our lives possible. We need to stop being such snobs and think that because we are an entrepreneur or whatever that somehow we are worth more than the people who make our businesses flourish. Wealth was designed to be shared, not hoarded.
Reading The Parable Of The Sower, which describes the breakdown of society, I was reminded that returning to “the good old days” when we were self-sufficient and raised all of our own food, made all of our clothes, cut wood to heat and build our cabins, etc. is not as appealing as it may sound. If we had no one else to help or support us in meeting our basic needs, we wouldn’t have survived for very long.
There is a reason we are hardwired to live in community. As Elon Musk swings his wrecking ball, all I can hope is that the end result is not more polarization but a coming together as we realize just how much we need each other!