I don't know if it is societal born or what, but I've noticed that getting something for nothing is bad. I've mentioned this in other posts before. The thought keeps coming up in conversations and when I'm watching the news and stuff. After breezing through college like I did, and seeing so many others do the same, I began to apply this thought to myself. I'm not saying I cheated or was blatantly dishonest in my schooling, but I didn't put much effort into it. What did I get? A 3.67 GPA. That's what it's all about anyway, right? Just get the grade and diploma? Well, I think that is the mindset of a lot of people these days. Just get the results. If you can do it without putting in the expected amount of work, then you are all the better, right? I don't know.
I just bought a truck last week. I put more than half of the price down and then financed the rest. I didn't have the required amount necessary at the start, so I got some of this truck for nothing. The result is that I now have to pay more than I would have in interest on the loan. By not paying now I am paying later. I think usually the paying later is going to be worse than the paying now. For my education, I probably shortchanged myself in some ways by not putting in the effort to really learn and internalize some of the concepts. I think it would be interesting to have a standardized test given to entering college freshman, one specific to their major, and then give the same standardized test to graduating seniors and compare the two grades. My guess is that the scores would be slightly higher on the way out, but not by much.
Maybe I'm too critical on myself though. Perhaps school was easy for me because the school I went to was easy (which it was), or because I'm super intelligent (well, you know). Still, I know I could have put more effort into studying. Someday perhaps I'll pay for it. Then again, I know where to look for certain bits of information, so unless I'm on a game show and have only 30 seconds to come up with the answer I think I'll be OK. Maybe that destroys my claim that not working hard in college is getting something for nothing? No, it doesn't. It is logical to see how minimal effort in school results in getting something for nothing.
I'm not going to be like everyone else and say that things are always better appreciated if you work for them your self, but sometimes that is the case. I've had things given to me that I appreciated quite a bit. I hear people say that kind of thing often. I think parents on TV always say it to their kids. I can imagine Danny Tanner saying it to DJ, "You'll appreciate that sweater more if you save the money to buy it yourself." I disagree with Danny, and not just on this imagined dialogue, but that's another story. I don't think it is a matter of what you get out of the thing you get without work, but that pattern of thinking leads along the lines of what I see as the underlying issue.
Getting something for nothing leads to an expectancy and dependence upon the source from where your gift came from, if it happens consistently. Obviously I'm not trying to destroy the concept of gift giving. Gift giving is good, for both parties, which is why I disagree with the thought that you'll appreciate more what you work for yourself. It isn't about that. It is about what happens to your expectations if you don't work for it. Does a person receiving welfare benefits not appreciate what they are receiving? I think they appreciate it. Would they appreciate it more if they worked for it? Perhaps, but I think what they'd really be feeling good about is having done the work, not receiving the benefit. Work contains a benefit in itself.
For example, I am digging a trench in the yard. We have a natural runoff spot along the driveway. Over the years it has taken a gradual slope-to-level surface into a bit of a canyon. There is a snaking track along the driveway that is only a few inches wide, but the overall valley that has been created is too uneven to drive the lawn mower across. I've devised a plan to allow for drainage while leveling out the ground so that it can be mowed across. If I were to wake up tomorrow and it was done I don't think I'd be less appreciative of the functionality of it. I would enjoy the fact that the hard work was done and I wasn't the one to do it (although I do enjoy doing the work, so I might be sad about that, but there are plenty of other projects to work on, so it would be OK overall). I don't know where I'm going with this now. I guess it shows that gifts are good. It also shows that you (or at least I, maybe I'm alone in this) don't appreciate things less if they are given to me. Finally, the point I was probably trying to make is this: when you get something for nothing, you miss out on the benefit of the work itself. I would miss out on the new knowledge and experience that would be acquired through the task. I would miss out on the physical exercise the work would require. I would miss out on the creative exercise of my mind that would be needed for the project. All of these things serve as satisfaction in a job well-done.
When I worked for the State of Vermont as an imaging specialist (scanning documents and indexing them electronically) I never felt like my job was very demanding or important, not the paper aspect of it. As my friend Harris (the one that discussed the pay and performance rates of pro-athletes with me) said, my old scanning job was so easy even a monkey could do it. I didn't argue with him. Well, I did, because monkeys can't do the keyboard number pad as well as I can, but superficially looking at the job a reasonable person might think a monkey could do it. I'm getting distracted again. I felt like the job was pretty basic, but I was still satisfied when I accomplished a lot of scanning and indexing. There was something satisfying about that huge pile of papers being processed. Empty baskets were pleasing. Had someone else done the work I don't think I would have been offended, unless it left me without the ability to get paid, then maybe. But that wouldn't have been about my having done the work or not. What I'm saying is that while the task itself was nothing ground-breaking or world-saving, the process of doing it was still satisfying. I didn't appreciate an empty in-basket more because I emptied it, but because I became something new through the process of emptying it. Even when the task is as seemingly insignificant as scanning a stack of papers there is still learning and experience that occurs. By not working now we miss out on having that knowledge and experience later.
That's my message. I enjoy typing up these posts because usually I just take an idea and start typing, not doing drafts or revisions, just letting my thoughts flow and typing it all up. (I type down. Why do they say type it up? Perhaps because the paper scrolled up on a type writer? The text moves in an upward direction on the screen as I type, but the keys are down and my fingers press down on them to type.) So do I appreciate my blog posts more because I put in the time to type them or do I get more out of them because I'm the one putting in the effort? Probably both in this case actually. The moral of the story is to not tell people that they will appreciate the end result more if they work for it themselves. Tell them that they will gain more out of the obtaining phase if do the work than they ever will in just the receiving phase. That is, by working to earn the money to save to buy the sweater they will gain much more than they will in the receiving portion, which is the simple satisfaction of having the sweater they wanted. In either case they can obtain the sweater (whether by work or gift) and in each case they can appreciate the sweater, but they only become something better as a person if they worked for it (unless it is a
really cool sweater).
