As a young man I was told that the secret to a happy professional life is to find out what you like and then figure out a way to get paid doing it. Another way to say it is "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life." Those are very simplistic views of course. No matter how much you love your job, there are days when you'd like to quit and walk away from it.
Every working artist I know works like a dog to create. Most spend many hours of very hard work just to give the illusion that it's easy. Sometimes we are victims of our own success. If we make it look easy then people think that it is. Recently a parent of a young student confessed that he decided to play a couple of the "easy" songs his daughter was playing. He was unsuccessful. "I don't how she does it," he said, "she's got the fingers of both hands doing all kinds of separate things and she just does it with ease."
I've had other jobs of course. I've been in retail management, installed furnaces and air conditioners, and been a file clerk. Those are "real people" jobs. They are hard to do and even if you're really good at them people don't applaud like my audiences do. So whenever my job feels even remotely difficult I try to remember what these other jobs were like. If I must, I go all the way back to my first days in the military when I was told and often reminded that even the stray dogs had more authority and rank than I did.
So on this Labor Day I want to salute and applaud the working folks. The people who work hard at thankless jobs. You make my life so much easier. From the clerk at the convenience store who has the crappy midnight shift, to the truck driver who is gone from his/her family all week, to the farmer who doesn't get a vacation because his cows need him every day.
Thank you all. I will try to be more respectful, more polite, and leave bigger tips. I will continue to bring beauty into the world for your enjoyment. Your work is appreciated and you are worth it.