What ever happened to a bit of hard yakka?

I’m a 30 year old Australian chippy and I honestly feel like my job is only going contribute to my health in a positive way as I age. There’s still a negative connotation with working in construction and how it ‘wrecks your body’ and your knees and back won’t last etc, etc. I don’t know if it’s just my demographic but majority of the younger tradesmen I work alongside and on site and all in great health, fit, active, eat well and exercise in one way or another.
I think in australian culture it takes so long for these views to change because people tend to just agree with what people say and run with it
Everyone probably saw older tradies work their ass off, drink 6 beers a night and never stretch or look after their body and of course alot of their bodies failed them. But modern tradies aren’t the same
The way I look at it is we’re built to be on our feet and be working all the time. Burning calories and working hard is a great thing for our health especially when we’re paid to do it. Of course there are days when your body takes a beating but the maintenance on our body is our responsibility and if you take the time to look after your knees and back, work on mobility and stretch there is no reason we should be forced to retire early.

As I said there are definitely physical days and aspects of your job, but no one’s body shouldn’t be able to handle the stress of work if we look after ourselves. If I think of the most physical days I have, are generally running barrows or concrete, jackhammering up slabs or lifting heavy beams, a little bit of that is good for ya!

I feel like when we’re in our 60’s and 70’s we’re going to be the ones who are the healthiest so I’d love if we could start a discussion and see if anyone else feels the same. Let’s start changing the way we view our careers. Realistically we’re all going to need to work for longer into our age. We may as well let our job contribute to our health.