Why are we happy when we work hard?

Nikola Tesla: "I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything."

When you work hard, you feel great. When you work hard and accomplish a goal you don’t need anyone to validate your hard work. The reward is enough. Extra praise is always welcome, but have you ever noticed that it is nothing more in your mind than an affirmation of the obvious?

How happy does hard work make you? Consider this, have you ever worked really hard on something and had someone come up to you and tell you, “Great job!”
If you think about this for a minute you will notice that had to restrain yourself from saying, “I know.” Even if the work was cleaning up your lawn and planting flowers, or cleaning your house you feel good when the project is complete. When your work has resulted in an invention, or the improvement or perfection of an existing object or process you feel even more joy.

Why is this? This is one of the questions I worked (There’s that work again) on for quite some time. At first it made no sense to me that working on my yard would make me feel happy. My first thought was that work makes you happy because you add value to yourself. When your lawn or your house looks better, it’s probably worth more. When your car is clean and well maintained it is perceived to have more value. The atheist, and perhaps the scientist would tell us that this is only natural. Our DNA allowed us to evolve because we value work, as it adds value to ourselves. This is just one of those issues that arises from time to time that leads me to believe science and philosophy do not mix.
I would love to be an artist. I would love to be able to paint, or draw. I cannot. I have tried. I have a logical mind, and my logic tells me that I can just practice and practice drawing until I get really good. So this is what I did. I drew eyes. For hour upon hour day after day month after month I drew eyes. I never could draw a nose, but after all of my practice, I could draw very good eyes. When I would spend a few hours on a set of eyes, I felt great. I had really accomplished something. But it added absolutely no value to me. I just thought they were visually appealing, if not quite beautiful, and I had created a set of eyes that belonged to no human being. They were my own creation.

This is the type of work that proves the point, work is good for the soul. There is a spiritual benefit to work, and a human a realistic benefit. When God created the universe he clearly created quite a few things that were not necessary for us to sustain life. Why? The very act of creation brings joy. Creation and perfection bring you joy by their very nature, but hey, if you’re not in to that, they also bring value to you. And by bringing value to you, this work also brings value to all of mankind.

Are you one of those people who feels guilty because you work hard and you are able to afford material items you do not need? Even worse, are you one of those who actually derive pleasure from luxury? Luxury is often misunderstood or deliberately described as something which it is not. Real luxury does not exist without comfort. A luxurious car often offers better safety features and reliability. This is a trade for a worthwhile product. But if the car has more comfortable seats or features, the car is a luxury. There is nothing wrong with comfort as part of your reward for hard work. But you might be surprised if I told you that this also benefits everyone. As the demand for certain comforts goes up, the price goes down, which of course benefits more people. As the price goes down, more of the product is manufactured, which creates more jobs.