Work

It is physically impossible for a well-educated,intellectual,
or brave man to make money the chief object of his thoughts;
as physically impossible as it is for him to make his dinner the principal object of them.
All healthy people like their dinner,
but their dinner is not the main object of their lives.
So all healthy?minded people like making money
—ought to like it and to enjoy the sensation of winning it;
but the main object of their lives is not money; it is something better than money.
A good soldier, for instance, mainly wishes to do his fighting well.
He is glad of his pay—very properly so,
and justly grumbles when you keep him ten months without it;
still his main notion of life is to win battles, not to be paid for winning them.
So of doctors.
They like fees no doubt—ought to like them;
yet if they are brave and well educated,the entire object of their lives is not fees.
They, on the whole,desire to cure the sick,
and—if they are good doctors, and the choice were fairly put to them
—would rather cure their patient and lose their fee than kill him and get it.
And so with all other brave and rightly trained men;
their work is first, their fee second, very important always,but still second.
But in every nation, there is a vast class of people who are cowardly,
and more or less stupid. And with these people,
just as certainly the fee is first and the work second,
as with brave people the work is first and the fee second.
And this is no small distinction. It is the whole distinction.
It is the whole distinction in a man.
You cannot serve two masters; you must serve one or the other.
If your work is first with you, and your fee second, work is your master.
Observe, then, all wise work is mainly threefold in character.
It is honest,useful, and cheerful.
I hardly know anything more strange than that you recognize honesty in play,
and do not in work.
In your lightest games you have always someone to see what you call “fair play”.
In boxing you must hit fair; in racing, start fair.
Your watchword is fair play; your hatred, foul play.
Did it ever strike you that you wanted another watchword also,
fair work, and another hatred also, foul work?