For The Greatest Happiness

When I was younger, my mom always said one particular quote. "For the greatest happiness, work must come first. The pleasure follows." She would often quote this whenever I complained about doing chores or procrastinating homework *cough cough*. Though I try to remember this, sometimes fun things make it hard to. I had an experience with this over the weekend.

My mom had been petitioning to get a new mattress because the one she and my dad shared was practically a taco. In her words, "the bed gently slopes down until you get to this cliff and *vhoomp*, you're stuck and can't get back up." She had been talking with my dad about it for a while, but he didn't feel the need to get a new bed just quite yet. Then they both agreed to flip the mattress 180 to feel what they were each experiencing. My mom woke up the next morning feeling great! My dad on the other hand, decided that yes, it was time to get a new bed soon. They didn't know when they were going to get it until later the same night.

My friend and I have recently become sucked into the show "Merlin" (you should watch it if you haven't - it's a great one). Anyway, she had come over so we could watch more episodes. She stayed through dinner, when my family discussed the bed topic. It turned out that my mom was considering switching around all the beds in the house, not just hers. After dinner, my friend and I got to work.

We started by taking apart the full guest bed in my basement. We then went up two levels to my bedroom to take apart my twin bed. After we had taken mine apart and moved it down the hall, we went back down to bring the full bed up. Now, mind you, we were two teenage girls trying to move a bed by ourselves up two flights of stairs. Not an easy task... Eventually we got my bed set up and we were able to relax for the rest of the evening. And when I say relax, I mean collapsed on the floor laughing so hard we can't breathe and tears streaming down our faces (or at least mine). She eventually had to go home, and I was able to have the best night's sleep I've had in a long time...

The next day I woke up to a surprise. I was to spend the whole day moving more beds! We took apart the bunk beds in my brother's room and set up my old bed in there. We then moved his bunk bed into my other brother's guest room (when he visits from college). We moved the older bunk beds that had been in there into my other other brother's house. After that, we moved my mom and dad's bed into the true guest room. Then my friend came over and (what do you know?) we watched more Merlin. We were also drafted into making the beds.

I tell this story because my whole family has benefited from hard work. We've all slept better than we have in ages, an we're all happier because of it. Yes, it seemed like an impossible feat when we first started, but now we get to relax and enjoy turkey and pie for Thanksgiving!

So remember, "for the greatest happiness, work must come first. The pleasure follows."