# That love is earned

- Link: https://legawa.com/buku-harian/that-love-is-earned/
- Published: 2024-02-29T09:10:21+07:00
- Author: Cahya

Prompt tulisan harian

Apakah Anda menikmati pekerjaan Anda?

[Lihat semua tanggapan](https://wordpress.com/tag/dailyprompt-1863)

The sun cast a long shadow across the old man’s face, lines etched as deeply into
his weathered skin as the furrows upon his fields. A lifetime’s labor showed in 
the gnarled hands that held the plow, the shoulders bowed under a yoke of both toil
and quiet acceptance. He was a simple farmer, a man of the earth, but in his calloused
touch, there was a timeless kind of philosophy.

“See here, son,” he rumbled one afternoon, the rhythm of his words slow as the oxen
pulling their weight. “The ground, she don’t play favorites. If you do right by 
her, sow the seed true and tend the crop honest, she yields a bounty. Cheat her,
and even the richest soil turns to dust.”

The wisdom wasn’t just for the land. He spoke of the grain, but his gaze drifted
to the town beyond the sloping fields. That’s where he’d see the banker, dressed
in fine linens that spoke of a different world. The butcher, apron stained with 
the work of the day, standing at his stall. And when the winds of change blew ill,
the soldiers – young and old – marching off with duty heavy on their faces.

“Don’t be thinking your work ain’t got the same weight as mine,” he’d say after 
a thoughtful pause. “It’s the honesty of it that makes the difference, same as tending
the fields true.”

The banker might count coins, a far cry from the bushels of wheat the farmer hefted.
Yet, in meticulous ledgers and careful transactions, there was a parallel to the
earth’s cycle. An honest balance sheet was its own fruitful harvest, providing for
the townsfolk in ways the farmer never could.

The butcher, his strong arms slick with his trade, performed a task most wouldn’t
dare. But in his skill, his swift, clean cuts, was respect for the creature that
gave its life, and the responsibility of nourishing the living. His honesty was 
in the weight on the scale, the fair pricing, a stark counterpoint to the blood 
on his hands.

The soldiers, ah, that’s where it got tangled. The old man understood the sword 
and shield better than most. War had marked his youth like weather scars an ancient
tree. “There’s honor in the fight,” he’d admit quietly, on nights when the old ache
was in his bones. “But it’s in doing what’s _right_ even when it’s hard, that’s 
where the true fight lies.” Mercy to a fallen foe, defense of the innocent over 
blind obedience – he’d lived that kind of honor, seen it, and mourned the lack of
it more than he liked to admit.

He’d even say the same for those with softer hands, like the medics stitching up
wounds. “There’s days even they gotta choose who lives and dies. It’s the honesty
that keeps those choices from haunting them. Do your duty, do it _right,_ don’t 
let fear or pride muddle your mind. That’s how you live with it later.”

The old man, he even had a word for the folks in the big city, though he’d never
set foot in one himself. The factory workers, lost in the belly of some rattling
beast of iron. “Each one’s just a cog,” he’d reckon, “but if one cog lies, the whole
machine grinds to a halt. Honest work, even a small bit of it, makes that machine
spin, feeds families, builds things.” There was a kind of respect in his voice, 
distant though it might be.

His world was the land, and the span of sky it held. Yet, he’d turn his weathered
gaze on whatever profession crossed his path and nod sagely. “Life ain’t about what
you do, see? It’s about _how_ you do it. Honest work, that’s worth more than gold.
The world goes on, bad times and good, but like a good well, honest work never runs
dry.”

And sure, when the day was done and his weary bones ached, he wasn’t reading fancy
books or reciting poetry. But there’s poetry, the quiet sort, in calloused hands
at rest. And philosophy lives not only in the minds of scholars, but in the dirt
beneath a farmer’s boot and the sweat of any brow bent in earnest labor.

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