Is It A Happy Labor Day?!

We celebrate on May 1^st from each year the Labor Day or “The Workers’ Day “as we call it in Lebanon: Eid El Oomal!

Working is a healthy sign; a working person is usually or should be independent, active and full of energy.

We always associate work with energy and success, as we associate laziness with doing nothing and failure, even if the worker is not happy, not motivated or not having the minimum from their wage but still, having a work is a sign of success, ambition or at least a dream to have a better life.

Sometimes I feel as if we were born to just work!
As soon as we grow up, they teach us how important is to study and work hard in order to have a decent job, then we need to work hard to have a decent life, and you often work so hard but you hardly live, you hardly find time to live, in fact time and money, especially after deducting all your bills and debts and payments.

And the more you earn, the more life throw on you and the more your needs grow so you feel it’s a vicious circle that will not break until you rob a bank or receive some huge fortune or heritage.
And when it’s time to have rest, you’re too old to enjoy our life if we assume you’ll live that much!

So basically, you work hard to live, to have a decent life and you often don’t get the life you dream of, you just settle to survive and not need other people, for sure you are grateful for what you have and you count your blessings on daily basis that’s for sure but life makes sure that you keep working hard to hardly live.

Working is great, having a work is greater, first question people ask you: what do you work? Or do you have work?
But how great can be working for $ 500 per month while your house rent is $ 400, you have 2 kids in school, they cost you around 10k per year each, you didn’t buy yet any food, clothes, medicine. You don’t have the privilege to take your family out!
Do we still can call it a work or a slavery? Can we really say “Happy Labor Day” to this father or mother? 🙄

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I mean no harm from spending your life working if you actually have a life, a decent life! Nowadays, most people just survive, they are not living and their work is just slavery and hardly fulfilling their basic needs.

No shame of working anything at all! We say in Arabic الشغل مش عيب (El sheghl mesh Aayb) work is not a shame! But some people are more fortunate than others, or they work harder than others, or they have better luck or chances, they received better education, better circumstances, they were gifted with better IQ…etc.
When I’m out with my friends and I see a woman or a man cleaning the floor, the bathrooms, or removing the food in the food court or else, I respect them for sure but I ask myself what if this person was me? What if she was my mother or my father? No shame, yes but it’s certainly hard and we should be grateful for what we have because it can always be worse.

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I always feel bad whenever I see someone mistreating less fortunate people, or people that are serving them in houses or restaurants or anywhere! It tells me so much about these people no matter how kind they might seem or act, how elegant they are, how fancy their clothes and cars are, they lose my respect immediately!

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I always say in Arabic “Cars don’t make human beings” especially when I see someone driving 4×4 that costs 50K and they throw the garbage out of their car window!
Oh you’re cheaper than this garbage, way cheaper! 😡

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Salute to all the workers out there! To every person that is working hard to make a life, to provide a better life to their families, to have a better future, to fulfill their dreams! Especially the foreigners: the domestic workers, housekeepers and maids, carpenters, janitors…All the hard workers that clean your shit but certain people still dare to  treat them poorly, to treat them like shit! While they glorify the thieves, the hypocrites and the ass-kissers.    

Happy Labor Day! I really wish you’ll have moments of happiness!
I wish you’ll all have the respect you need and you’ll live instead of survive!

Thank you for reading, please share your thoughts and opinions.

Huguette Antoun – April 30h 2019