Why Do Americans Work To Hard

“In the matter of immigration… The United States has too many people who don’t work hard.”

There is a woman I know by the name Arla Finney. She has a full time job, she is a full time mother, and a part time student. Out of seven days a week, she hardly has any time for relaxation, not even on the weekends. She raises four young women to the best of her abilities as well as working her tail off to make sure they have entirely everything they essentially need. Often times she feels that she has to work over her regular time just to make ends meet when they have already been met. As far as free time goes, I’m not sure she even knows what that is. The only free time allotted to her is at night when she lays her head on her pillow. Yes, the woman I speak of is my mother. Another overdosed with work American. Many days I can see it in her eyes how exhausted and stressed out she is. Lucky for her she has a daughter like me and I try to help out in every single way that I can. But not everyone is that fortunate. It may not be a widespread subject in the news, but an excessive percentage of people won’t acknowledge that they are overworked Americans. Their stress levels are intensifying, their families are dwindling away from each other, and for some even their well-being is weakening. Some people are working so much and scarcely have anything to show for it. While people need a job to make a living, too many Americans are working entirely too much.

Great satisfaction does come from hard work, especially when knowing a person put their all into accomplishing the task goes a long way. To say whether or not one would agree with the statement of through hard work, everybody can succeed in American society really does depend on who is making the statement. History is everything. Knowing where you began does help a person plan on their tomorrow. The division between social classes has always been there and will always be. Those who are fortunate enough to get “the break” they were looking for often times come off of their brow. Many are born with a so-called silver spoon in their mouth, but for many, that is not always the case. With social class being measured by income and wealth,

Our country is quickly turning into a welfare state; this process by which the government takes more and more of our income and thus the benefit of our work for the common good doing this deters people from working for themselves to achieve a better life at all. This self perpetuates simply by the fact that if you’re not working then you becoming one of the multitude of individuals needing help. Requiring people to work twice as hard to reap a certain level of benefit is a stifling concept those without the fortitude to do this will simply accept a meager existence and be sustained upon the handouts given.

In the book GiG Americans Talk About Their Jobs, include 100’s of interviews of different people with different jobs that provide personal achievements, and goals that give these individuals the strive to work. These reasonings of why we should work point out much more than money being the outcome. Each individual interviewee has a different reason for why they work, what makes them strive to work, what makes their job’s worth going to each day. From selected interviews “Wal-Mart Greeter”, “Clutter Consultant”, “Lobbyist”, and “Orthopedic Surgeon” each represented different reasons of work;the four that stood out most to me included: Self-worth, appreciation from clients, political belief goals, and mental fulfillment.

The American work ethic, he claims, has made a large free labor force, which in turn has made capitalism a very powerful force in our society. The post World War II surge in patriotism and

Wayne W. Dyer, an American philosopher once said, “Love what you do; Do what you love”. By thinking in these words and looking for all these people who are working simple or low-income jobs, I asked myself two questions. Do all these people really love what they are doing? Or are they working these kinds of jobs just to survive? Barbara Ehrenreich, an American author answers these questions in her book, Nickel and Dimed by showing her “experiment” as she called as a worker with low income and explains how the laborers’ lives look like. That can be explained by Hannah Arendt ideas “Labor, Work, Action” from her book “The Human Condition”. Although Ehrenreich never mentions Arendt in her book, she demonstrates Arendt’s ideas about Labor is necessity

In an age where reality television is the way to become a “break-out star,” Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust seems to be an accurate precursor of what would be to come. In the novel, everyone is chasing the American Dream, which sells the illusion that anyone can make it—all they have to do is go to Hollywood. When the novel begins, the reader is not immediately aware of the fact that everything is taking place in Hollywood. The story begins with imagery of war and Tod Hackett hearing “[t]he groan of leather mingled with the jangle of iron and over all beat the tattoo of a thousand hooves” (1). From there, it goes into the narrator discussing the infantry and generals as though Tod is actually in a war torn land before everything is brought back into perspective. The illusion of war dissipates when there is a shout telling the actors to go to “Stage Nine” (1). From here this point forward, the book seems to be pointing at the artifice of the city and many of the people in it. The concept that nothing is as it seems pervades the entire novel. Everything, including much of the setting, is a façade. The characters even act out emotions rather than allow themselves to actually experience them. However, laughter, grief, and surprise are often acted rather than actually felt, rage and hatred are genuinely portrayed. These emotions often surface because the illusion that the characters are fighting so hard to maintain is disrupted. When the characters are not able to continue

Productivity is Essential Robin Hood is a cartoon figure in America that steals from the rich and gives to the poor. A good idea, right? Well, how about if the rich work for everything that they have and the poor rely on the rich and do not do anything to earn their keep? Robin Hood just became a very evil man. Atlas Shrugged written by Ayn Rand in 1957 expresses ideas that are becoming more and more true in today’s lazy society.

What role does the American ideal of hard work play in how low wage workers view themselves, and in how they are viewed by more affluent members of American society? Is this ideal more true or more false, and why?

One’s work is viewed as a positive, fruitful contribution. While one’s occupation consumes one’s life, it is an inherently valuable investment. How did this paradigm shift from viewing work as estranged labor (in modernity) to a meaningful endeavor (in postmodernity) arise? Which social classes feel estranged from their labor? What is the broader relevance of labor and how it shapes how we view our identity and humanity? One could argue that human agency is a paradigm that shapes how people view how meaningful their work is. How do we shape our work and how does it mold us? Does our work align with our values and goals for ourselves? In the 21st century, work is often seen as a source of pride. Americans derive a sense of satisfaction from their occupations because they are often granted the agency to start their own businesses; to that end, entrepreneurial enterprises are the staple of American innovation. Creative endeavors are valued as well. On the contrary, labor in modernity served as a source of alienation. “The worker therefore only feels himself outside himself. He is at home when he is not working, and when he is working he is not at home” (74). This idea contradicts the “9-5 job” narrative shapes the American business paradigm. Today, the unemployed are ostracized for their lack of work. And yet, they do not willing subscribe to this stereotype. Unemployed Americans

Americans work more than anyone else and it doesn’t do anything for us, the average workweek for the U.S. is forty one hours a week. Compared to France, Britain, and Germany more than thirty percent of Americans work more than forty five hours a week. Over a year’s span the average number of hours an employee worked is 1,800 hours. Not to mention we work a lot more than other countries, we work undesirable hours too, and even weekends. Since we work so much we have made the living cost go up and making us work more for what we get less for a lot more money. President Obama is trying to make workers earn time and a half over time in pay so we can reduce the hours worked (Hamermesh 1).

Is forty hours a week too long for Americans to work? Are Americans hurting themselves from working a forty-hour week? Americans in fact are not being hurt for working, It’s actually proven that Americans who work these long hours are the ones who separate more income, have no criminal records and less stressed.

The sources perspective is basically lied upon all people becoming more efficient, as part of the source says “In carrying out this work of civilization we are fulfilling what I believe to be a national mission.” This source can also reveal that the perspective of the quote does not really admire work. Since this quote is linked to and is similar to the poem “The white man's burden.” and it says from the passage “but it must be remembered that it is a condition of the mission that we have to fulfill.”

I do not agree that working long hours encourages people to consume more. I have some working experiences before. After working for the whole day, I felt very tired and I thought money does not come easily, so I would not buy as much as I earned. I would like to save it and buy wait until I think the price of the good I want to buy is acceptable and it is useful.