Your Labor Day

It is Labor Day, a day that America thinks of as   the end of summer. It is also the day we give tribute to all the hard laborers that work all year long at their grueling jobs. One of our most famous worker is America’s most experienced Astronaut. Peggy Whitson finally gets a break after spending a whopping 288 continuous days in space in the International Space Station. In her career she has spent a total of 665 days in orbit; more than any other American.

Hurricane Harvey in Texas will keep Americas laborers busy since it dumped 4 feet of rain in 4 days pretty much destroying everything there. 450 square miles was under water. How do you evacuate 6.5 million people in 2 days? So, many people had to be carried out in waist deep water.  That was a laborious task. A civilian navy of people with high vehicles and boats came to the rescue of many, many, folks. Laborers vow to make Houston better than ever again despite the estimated $75 billion dollars  worth of damages that happened to the region. I hope they can take today off from work today but I doubt it. Nothing stops a motivated good worker.

A place in America where there is more workers than even people living in the town is Warroad, Minnesota the home of Marvin Windows. The company has a 2 million square foot factory there where they make windows. It is a made in America company barely six miles from Canada so a lot of really good hockey players come from there too. About 2,400 people work at the window factory but the population of the town is only 1,700 people living there. More people work in Warroad than live there. I hope those people have Labor Day off too.

Why do we all work anyway? We work because we love. It is even a greater reward for our labors if we can work doing a task that we love to do. We love people and want to create the best lives we possibly can afford to do for the people we love. Some are high maintenance and need to buy a lot of stuff to keep themselves happy so they need skills that can earn lots of money for themselves. Others don’t need much in terms of materialistic things. They just need a roof to sleep under and a few meals a day. We all work for happiness and sometimes taking that day off is all the happiness we need. Some will get paid time and a half if they work today at some retail store pushing their Labor Day sales. The extra money they earn today will bring them happiness. So, Labor Day must really mean a form of happiness.

Maybe you are tired of working hard at your jobs or now are at an age when people have to slow down, their bodies can’t do it all anymore. Today you can sit back and try to figure out how much money you estimate you will need for retirement. How many years would that money last you? How long will I even live? We need to plan for income that will last all of our retirement and maybe bit of money for investments or an inheritance for those we love after death too. I guess I have to go back to work to get all that but not today. It is Labor Day and I will have some time to reflect on all my labors so far. Enjoy!