Journal Entry About Hewing

This is a part of a journal entry that I had written about working at the hewing site.

"Through the daily work we perform in the woods or at the hewing site, many of us have developed a sense of empathy towards workers that used to work without machinery.  Performing this labor has given me a deeper understanding of the struggles associated with this labor and the dangers that workers were exposed to.  Men carrying large axes around you and striking the wood the wrong way can make you very susceptible to physical harm.  This laborious job required several hours of work a day at a relatively low wage. People were working in unsafe conditions and performing strenuous activity throughout the day but received salaries that could barely support one person.

Although this work is somewhat relaxing and peaceful for me, the amount of pain associated with performing this job every day is unimaginable.  By experiencing this type of work, I have obtained sympathy for those who severely struggled to perform this labor.  It requires complete attentiveness and being situationally aware of my surroundings.  I am slowly becoming more appreciative of the work that people do without judging its level of difficulty.  Although a job may seem easy from afar, actually doing the work may not always be as easy as the skilled employees make it seem.  I shy away from judging people based on the type of work they do because the level of difficulty involved will remain unknown unless I experience it myself."