Boney Fingers

Work your fingers to the bone – whadda ya get?
Whoo-whoo. Boney Fingers – Boney Fing-gers.

                                                            Hoyt Axton

Hoyt Axton’s great country western song rumbles around in my brain a lot these days. There is this strongly held notion that hard work eventually pays off. We continue to pass this notion down generation after generation to ensure children know that hard work, at some point, may be necessary for success. 

I grew up thinking that hard work mattered – anyone who put in a full days’ work would receive the fruits for their labor. Nothing luxurious – a roof over your head, enough food for your family, affordable transportation and decent education for your children.  The perfect middle class idea was a man putting in an eight-hour day at a job while the woman staying at home to raise the children. For a short time, it was the expectation in post-World War II America and, to a large extent, the whole western world. The prosperity was so prevalent that we were lulled into to believing that all a person had to for the good life is work hard.

Yet there is more than enough evidence that this notion is false even when prosperity was the norm.  Everybody knew people who have worked hard all of their life and received little. This notion of hard work fails to consider other factors like Intelligence and luck. And even people who have all three elements going in their favor, often failed. Hard work is just not enough.

Yet, we continue to sing the praises of hard work.  Why? There are people working three jobs to keep afloat with so much debt that there is little expectation that in this life time, these debts will be paid. Don’t worry the hard work mythers have an answer for that.  There are stories about people who were in exactly the same situation who worked their way out of their problems, continued to work hard and now are billionaires. It is possible only if you keep trying.

These success stories are singular experiences not the norm. These stories, in fact, are rare. How many billionaires do you know? Most people do not achieve that kind of success from hard work.  These myths rarely highlight the luck or smarts involved for these people to succeed.  All that is needed is that nose to the grindstone.  This is the lesson we pass on to children so that they continue to work hard.  Wouldn’t want them to stop working hard now would we?

To me, the notion of hard work is pernicious. Everybody talks about hard work as the answer to our problems and people are working themselves to death for what? Western society is rife with addictive behavior – we drink too much, drug too much, gamble too much, buy too much, watch TV too much – the list is endless. The answer is work.  Work on your addictions, work on your relationships, work, work, work.  The problem is always the individual not working hard enough to succeed. This, of course, is a distraction. If you view yourself as the problem, you will always be addressing how you don’t quite measure up to the system. It is a distraction from the real problem – the system. All most people will get from hard work is boney fingers.