Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Is man made to work?

I love this quote from Paul Graham:
"As societies get richer, they learn something about work that's a lot like what they learn about diet. We know now that the healthiest diet is the one our peasant ancestors were forced to eat because they were poor. Like rich food, idleness only seems desirable when you don't get enough of it. I think we were designed to work, just as we were designed to eat a certain amount of fiber, and we feel bad if we don't." Paul Graham - What Business Can Learn from Open Source.

Isn't it funny that the grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence? Because we have to work we wish we didn't! If, like me, you have had times in your life when you didn't have much to do, you soon realize how empty that kind of existence is.
Rick Waren made this point in his book, "The Purpose Driven Life". We are not here on earth to sit around an make life as easy as possible for ourselves. Instead we are here for a mission (a purpose), to make Jesus known throughout out the world, to live in fellowship with one another, to worship God, and to serve others.
Notice the last point, serving others?
Serving others is the basis of open source software, the open source movement is fueled by people who say, I am willing to give my time and effort so that I am able to help others get great software. Without this attitude I suggest that open source wouldn't get very far.

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