Today is Labour Day.
It is also the last long weekend of the summer preceding our beautiful fall season.
Later today, a New Year begins for some of us. As they say, “Shana Tova” (or Happy New Year)!
Both Labour Day and an end/start of a chapter in life provide an opportunity for reflection on the meaning of labour.
Labour means work. Often, it refers to hard physical work (but not only).
In many countries of the world, including France and Lebanon, there is no Labour Day (or long weekend). What is celebrated instead is the International Workers’ Day or May 1st Day. The latter is a celebration of the labourers (not the labour per se)/working classes.
Regardless, this brief reflection is relevant to both celebrations as well as to the start of a new year.
Some of us are lucky, even blessed, to love our jobs. Not everyone wakes up excited to go to work on every day.
Others work to earn a living without satisfaction in the work or… workplace.
Others may be devoted workers while being underpaid or taken advantage of in one or another way.
Yet others keep working hard in their search for a job after being laid out or upon migrating.
There are also those rare ones who can afford not to work in life.
And, of course, there are those who despite being passionate and diligent about work, they have been prevented from doing it or from even having physical access to it; ironically sometimes by their own employers.
Anyhow, regardless of our labour types or conditions, Happy Labour Day to you!
To conclude this post in music and maybe to also practice your French, how about two famous, work-related songs, one by the Mr. Zachary Richard and the other by the Colocs?
