Work Hard

Oct 02, 2025

The path to profit

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In all hard work there is profit, but merely talking about it only brings poverty.

Proverbs 14:23 (NET)

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I’ve heard that there’s a phenomenon of YouTube videos related to this verse.

The way I understand it, you can watch a video of someone doing something — for example, baking a cake or fixing a car — and feel the same as if you actually did it.

If that’s true, then anytime I watch someone else accomplish something instead of doing it myself, I’m cheating myself.

Worse:

I’m then someone who’s all talk and no action.

As this proverb points out, that leads to poverty and not profit.

I like to watch blacksmithing videos from time to time. I’m never going to start a forge in my backyard, heat some metal, beat it with a hammer, slap some wood on it, sand it, and call it a knife.

Not gonna happen.

But, man, do I love watching guys do that stuff.

And I feel pretty good when I get to the end of the video and see the result of all that work they put into it.

But it’s not like I have an actual knife to show for my effort … all I did was watch it happen.

The reason I don’t want to do it myself is because I know that at some point it’s going to get hard … I’d rather relax and live vicariously than put in the effort myself.

Now, I guess that can be okay for entertainment, but I better make sure I don’t let that bleed into my actual work.

When it’s time to work, I gotta work.

That’s the path to profit.

— Ricky Ketchum

Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from the ESV®Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright© 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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