Hard work is a blessing, an excellent learning opportunity and also a balancing act. Most of my career has been in both natural resource management and captive wildlife management (zoo keeper). While I do have a degree the truth is a lot of the stuff I was involved in day-to-day was physical labor that could broadly fall under the category of semi-extreme manual landscaping, lol.
I say its a blessing because, while at 47 I've moved into more of a management position in my current job, I'm still able to move/lift/shift accomplish a lot more physically and in a more efficient manner by myself than the college students who work for me, even though I'm no longer really in "field" shape. A good portion of that ability comes from muscle memory and 20 ish years of learning how to move efficiently and use leverage because there wasn't always extra hands to help.....
Big belt buckles are for more than just a fashion statement - used appropriately they are an excellent waist level tool to balance a heavy load and take strain off of your back and arms while carrying/shifting/moving something heavy. *Edit* - I may need to lose a little weight these days in order to be able to still use that trick to fullest effect.
I say hard work is also a balancing act cause, well, after 19 knee dislocations I'm very much looking forward to the total knee replacement Santa is bringing me this Christmas. At some point down the road I'll also be staring down the barrel of lis franc fusion in my right foot due to an undiagnosed & untreated torn ligament that happened during a prescribed fire years ago. I also have arthritic hands and a bulging disc in my back. Unfortunately, for a lot of us who have done/do heavy & repetitive physical labor the lessons learned about efficiency and making do have come at the cost of joint damage.
