Do you have to get paid when you do a job? Raising a child, coaching little league, being a scout leader, organizing a church picnic, ushering, feeding the homless, keeping your sidewalk clean, giving someone directions, reading to kids at school or library, collecting food for a drive? Of course not, so why would anyone not want to volunteer for a good cause?
My apprentice, Katie, just remarked to me that we shouldn’t call the jobs referred to in my previous posts about creating 1,000 and then 2,000 jobs as “Jobs” because that makes people think they will get paid for doing these things. Kathy also remarked in her letter response that we think of jobs as in getting paid. Who does? I don’t. I say It’s a job raising a family, being a scout leader, a church choir member and we don’t get paid in $, we get paid in pride, helping another become a good citizen, improve our neighborhood. helping those in need on a temporiary basis till they can get on their own feet, continue helping those that can’t help themselves and all the other things that make a good person valuable to society. Stop always first thinking how much will I get paid. Think how much can I help you!
I want to assure her that the 1,000 new jobs can be looked at as opportunities and will be paid but not in dollars to start with but in information, education, self-esteem, gratitude, and the feeling that they’re doing something to help mankind and our environment. They’re learning good attitudes and good work ethic habits. They’re going to feel better about themselves and they’ll be admired by their family, friends, and neighbors. They’re no longer going to have to stand in line, a humiliating experience unless you’re waiting to enter an entertainment event. Think now if you ran a nonprofit, a YMCA, a Church, the Red Cross, the Square Foot Gardening Foundation, and some volunteer came in every day, ontime, ready to work with a smile and a good attitude by saying, “What can I do to help?” You’d plan ahead and have things for them to do. When they’re finished you’d look at them and say to each person, “That was a good job. Thank you for coming. We appreciate you.” How could that not make everyone feel better, more worthwhile, and an asset rather than a liability during this tough economy.
Picture now what might happen in the future? This same person becomes not only educated but mannered in the art of accomplishing something, helping someone else. That would be very visible to those that already have a job. Some of those are going to have to hire new help sometime in the future. Who would you pick? Someone that came every day, had a good attitude, smiled, seemed willing to help out? Or someone that did nothing but stand in a line waiting for their monthly help and received no opportunity to show their gratitude? Someday the economy’s going to get better, and there will again be enough jobs for everyone. If you didn’t have a job now, which group would you rather be in?
great article! Not only do you get the satisfaction of seeing a job done/completed, but it is so much fun to cast a vision and watch other people catch it and run. Also, in working as a team, you not only grow plants but you also grow relationships and eliminate those pesky “weeds” that one tends to focus on rather than praising all the good things that are growing! I am visualizing the poor hungry folk in Honduras (my birthplace) where the poorest of the poor could provide their own food!
What a wonderful analogy of both the good points that people come away with, but also the weeds! I just finished a radio show where the host was so astounded with the simplicity of Square Foot Gardening and after several phone calls came in, rather than from experts who usually say, “Gardening can’t be that easy. Gardening is a lot of work and you have to know a lot of things,” these calls were from beginniners and people who always had a reason for not gardening. Those responses varied between lack of space, time, money, knowledge, or some other reason in their life. But they all concluded, after they heard the simplicity of SFG, “I could do that.” And they usually do. Nolvia, how can we get the word out to more people, especially in your homeland, where they probably don’t have the space for a big garden, but they can put in a Square Metre Garden. I have a new book coming out later this spring titled, “Square Metre Gardening” and hopefully that will convince many people around the world that they could actually raise some part of thier own food at no cost and very little effort and space. Thank you for your good thoughts and please pass the word on!
Thanks for all you do to promote successful gardening. My friends and I would like to visit your demonstration gardens in Eden next week (The week of June 3). Is it possible that your gardens will be open then. We live in Pocatello and would like to drive down. Please let me know when a good time would be. We are hoping for Tuesday. We will need an address.
I’m sorry to tell you that when I left Eden, the public display gardens were not continued, so nothing to see anymore.