To be well occupied and interested in one's work brings happiness and contentment.  I believe that the most contented people in the world are the busy people, those whose hands are daily full of helpful, honest work, who, when their day's work is ended, have the satisfied feeling that comes from time well and profitably spent.

To those who lack energy, who waste their time in dreaming over work to be done, instead of going steadily about it, there must always come more or less discontent, an unsatisfied feeling of work unaccomplished which might have been done could the person only have shaken off his lethargy and gone about his duties with a determination to conquer listlessness and inactivity.

Ages ago it was written, "By much slothfulness the building decays, and through idleness of the hands the house drops through."  How truly Solomon's words may be applied to many of the present day.  Why have we so many paupers?  Why so much suffering, misery, and crime?  Why so many people out of work?  Why?  Because so many are either shiftless or inefficient, or because they are too lazy or proud to take up work that may be waiting to be done, but instead are idly waiting for some soft, easy job, unheeding that plenty of honest hard work lies all around them.

As a rule, these idle dreamers do not help on the progress of the world, nor can they claim a certain dignity and self-respect that may be numbered among the compensations of the industrious.

It is beyond question that work, while a necessity, is also one of the greatest blessings bestowed upon mankind, and many and various are its compensations.