Work first, then pleasure
Essay by Martin Hyun, author and former professional ice hockey player
When I was in lower secondary school, one of my teachers liked to say before exams: “Work makes life sweet. Laziness strengthens the limbs.” At the time, I took this to be one of those old-fashioned sayings, much like ora et labora from the Benedictine tradition of the early Middle Ages. Looking back, I sometimes think it may simply have been a teacher’s attempt to convince a class of teenagers that learning was neither torture nor a seasonal chore. It was not meant as a dismissal of physical labour but as an educational point: Those who reject learning often—without realising it—turn away from the opportunities education can open.
My parents came to Germany from South Korea as part of the generation recruited in the 1960s and 1970s as miners or nurses. Max Frisch’s famous line—“We asked for workers, and people came”—captures their reality well. They left a country that, after colonialism and war, had nothing to offer them. For them, work was not self-fulfilment but survival and responsibility. A large share of their wages was sent back to Korea—for families, for opportunity, for dreams they had given up themselves.
When I show school students footage of Korean miners working underground, they often look at me as if I were describing a vanished world. “They really went down there?” Yes, they did. Every day.
For many in Generation Z, that reality feels as distant as black-and-white television.
Just how much the idea of work has changed became clear to me recently when I was walking with my 15-year-old nephew Julian. Outside a shop in Düsseldorf, a young man stood surrounded by teenagers taking selfies.
“Who’s that?” I asked. Julian looked at me in disbelief.
“Uncle… you really don’t know?” “No.” “That’s Brooklyn!”
Julian sighed: “Uncle, you’re old. Brooklyn has over a million followers on TikTok.”
As we walked on, it struck me how profoundly our understanding of work has shifted. My generation long dismissed influencers—without realising how significant follower counts would one day become.
There used to be a saying: “People do things they don’t love, so they can later afford the things they do love”, as the father of an American comedian once put it. That still holds true today. My parents’ generation worked physically hard, often invisibly. Work meant discipline, sacrifice and responsibility. My nephew’s generation is growing up in a world where a smartphone and an idea can be enough to create visibility—and income. Work is no longer just an obligation; it is an expression of identity. The difference is less moral than historical. One generation learned that work meant sacrifice. The other experiences it as a form of self-realisation. Society’s view still oscillates between admiration and the suspicion that it is somehow “not real work”.
I can still hear my teacher’s words: “Work makes life sweet.” I’m not sure he had influencers in mind. But I’m sure he would have been curious. Sometimes I think of that when I’m at home with a mop in my hand and my wife smiles and says: “Work first, then pleasure.” Perhaps that is the simplest truth about work—whether underground, in an office, or in front of a camera. In the end, the same principle applies everywhere—first the work, then the pleasure.
Martin Hyun has a degree in political science, international business and international relations. As the first professional ice hockey player of Korean descent, he played in the German Ice Hockey League (DEL) and represented Germany at junior level. Hyun is the author of several books, including ‘Ohne Fleiß kein Reis. Wie ich ein guter Deutscher wurde’. Most recently, he co-authored the Der Spiegel bestseller ‘Gebrauchsanweisung für Nachbarn’ with Wladimir Kaminer.