Today I’m going to bring up a very old value and explore it with you a little. What I’d like to discuss is the idea of the value of hard work.

What is it? Where does it come from? Why do those of us who know what it is feel so strongly about it?

I have developed a theory about it, and it’s coming today because it flows naturally from the assertions I’ve made in this blog in recent weeks. I propose that the reason those of us who value hard work do so with such force, is because it prompts us to short circuit the guilt and self-denial that robs us of the ability to achieve real self-esteem.

It comes down to being able to savor your own accomplishments. We all know people who can’t do this. You might be one yourself. Always giving credit where it’s due unless in regard to your own achievements. Mild rebukes to appreciation like, “Nah it was nothing,” or, “I was only doing what anyone would have done,” or the like are assumed to be expressions of modesty, but are they really? Is modesty even virtuous?

To that last question I would answer: sometimes. As long as credit is given where it is due. Being unpretentious is fine; it is a form of honesty. But denying the value of your deeds is not.

These folks tend to be assiduous in giving credit where it’s due because they believe in the principle of doing this, and this underlines the significance of their own rule of not accepting credit for their own labor and/or wise/generous choices. They know that a good turn deserves appreciation, and so their denial of it holds meaning.

They tend to be achievers too. Do-gooders are often this type. Looking out for their fellows, and keeping themselves in order well enough to continue in this fashion. Stringing along accomplishment after accomplishment, and sidestepping the reward offered by those whom they have helped.

What they are really doing here, is denying the self. They are committing themselves to the absolute altruistic ideal that the self does not matter, only what one can do for others. They are acting “selflessly” in an effort to do the right thing, and therefore it would be the wrong thing to accept credit for it. And indeed, we live in a culture that greatly values denial of self, destruction of pride, omission of ego, and total dedication to the betterment of anyone but oneself. That is a rather involved subject for another discussion perhaps, but for the sake of this conversation let’s just agree that accomplishments are good, helping others is good, giving due credit is good, and holding oneself accountable for all one’s good deeds, is also good.

There is nothing morally positive about discounting one’s achievements. Modesty, when it is a denial of reality, is a corollary of self-killing altruism. These people throw away the value of the good they’ve done and believe this is a righteous act (notice also that acting righteously is itself a contradiction of modesty). They work to do what they say they believe is right, then belie the same act’s rightness by blanking out the goodness of the act. It is a lie, and it is done under the pretense of a lie, which is rooted in self-hate.

And the negative effects beyond this are long-reaching. It may result in an irrational fear of death due to failure to meet real goals, as per the topic discussed here in the last two weeks. It may result in failure to state one’s goals and think them through, preferring to evade that kind of self-oriented thought. This results in a life filled with a long string of small accomplishments and the failure to do what is truly important to the individual. And the scope of one’s own life is not considered, since no goal-planning is effectively conducted. We talked about the value of this in the Grok Death topic.

Today I’ve drawn a line between self-hate and what is typically considered virtuous modesty. This is the first step in making the point I stated at the beginning of this entry, which is that the value of hard work lies in the way it forces one to accept self-esteem. Next week I’ll tie up these assertions to show the mechanism.