My heart is in my work

To underestimate it would amount to a travesty. To avoid it completely would amount to nothing more than an unpardonable waste. And to fuss about it all the time would point towards a lack of direction. The more I think about it, the more impressed I am about its sheer power to alter and define our lives. It is, in all likelihood, one of the most powerful and magical gifts we have been given as human beings. It is our ability to work. Our innate ability to exert our mental and physical strengths to build and sustain all things around us, and by so doing play our individual parts in the world’s order of things.

I am quite convinced that most of the blessings that we enjoy and take for granted in our everyday lives is the result of one person’s hard and unrelenting work at some point in time. Those that did that great things in the past could not have possibly done them without hard work. As to quote a genius himself,  genius is one percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration. What a remarkable thought, I said to myself.

Here at the place where I study, arguably one of the most prolific places of learning on this planet, I see the patterns of that thought woven into its every fabric. I look to my professors and my peers in my school and I see in them an unspoken and noble willingness to work. To build and learn something worthy, it seems, takes nothing less than hard work. And to learn about the value of working hard and how to work hard, are by themselves a powerful set of skills that cannot be reversed.

I have found that hard work is always rewarded,  and that no drop of sweat or midnight oil burnt is a wastage. Andrew Carnegie, Carnegie Mellon’s founding philanthropist, was an ardent and keen worker, who believed in the value of work. So much so, that our motto is ‘my heart is in work’.

I will strive to live up to this motto. It is, as Einstein said, a golden thread of inspiration that continues into every generation, inspiring those who read it to make a noble affirmation to work and to love work. And so shall this motto be one of my own.

My heart is in my work.