What it means to work like a horse

"Working like a horse" is a common expression.
Especially in Japan today.

Recklessly,
With all one's might,
Looking only forward,
With single-minded devotion,
Without thinking about anything,

It is the perfect phrase to describe the state of working.

🐎　　🐎

A carriage is meant to transport people from one place to their destination. As a derivative term, the recently popular concept of "coaching" seems to have come to be used in the sense of "supporting people in achieving their goals."

A "carriage" is composed of two things: a "horse" and a "cart." Since it is a horse for a carriage, I suppose that is why it is called a "carriage horse."

Furthermore, the people riding in the cart can be divided into the driver who controls the horse by whipping it, and those who are just sitting back and relaxing.

In other words, there are three characters:
・Carriage horse
・Driver
・People sitting back and relaxing

🐎　　🐎

When people use the expression "working like a horse," I wonder if they realize that there is a driver or someone sitting back and relaxing in the background?

So, who are the driver and the person sitting back and relaxing?

The driver is:
In terms of company employees, management (directors, department heads, etc.)
In terms of Japanese citizens, those who receive salaries from taxes (national public servants, etc.)

The person sitting back and relaxing is:
In terms of company employees, the president, executives
In terms of Japanese citizens, the elite (politicians, bureaucrats, etc.)

The carriage horse is, of course, me
(Perhaps, all of you too?)

The fact that I am being made to work like a carriage horse means that I am being made to work by the president and the elite.

🐎　　🐎

Thinking that it would be exhausting for this to go on for a lifetime, I once aimed to be on the side of those riding in the "cart." I managed to reach the driver's seat, but the driver was, after all, just someone who followed the orders of those sitting back and relaxing. In the first place, I don't have a strong desire for promotion, and whipping a horse (person) doesn't suit my nature.

I was once a carriage horse. Even so, I was very happy when I was working like a carriage horse. I wasn't being whipped by anyone to work, and the act of running forward with single-minded devotion was very fun and fulfilling in itself.

Since I was a company employee, when a carrot called an incentive was dangled in front of me, I would run toward that carrot faster than any other horse.

After becoming a driver, I created various carrots and had many horses run to engage in work, but I didn't create plans as if I were whipping them, lol, probably.

I myself felt like I was being made to run by someone, but since I enjoyed that feeling of being made to run, I have no regrets about my life as a company employee.

🐎　　🐎

I am currently in a place where horses live, eating grass freely in their natural pasture.

I will never run again. I will never make anyone else run either. If I feel like running on my own, I will just run. I am simply eating grass under the sun, under the blue sky, in a green meadow as far as the eye can see.

I call this my second life.

🐎　　🐎

People have their own ways of living, and I cannot help but feel that this way of living, eating grass freely in a meadow, is my true self.

Thanks to that, I am a horse that has acquired the skills to do many things. Occasionally, I would like to go down to the village and help people in need.

I am 56 years old, born in the Year of the Horse, neigh!

This is my own book. You can read it for free on Amazon Unlimited.

I participate in the Amazon Associates Program.
Published books→ https://amzn.to/4czN51O