Greetings everyone!

Way back when I was in the village with my parents, we had these sets of laborers we usually took to our farms for work, and their ritual always baffled me. Most times, my mom would offer to give them breakfast since sometimes they left for the farm from our house, but they would refuse and instead request cigarettes and a sachet of dry gin.

The way they preferred cigarettes and dry gin to a good, solid breakfast surprised me a lot because I usually took them to the farm, and I couldn’t dare to leave the house without taking my breakfast.

So instead of serving them food, my dad would buy them their favourite brand of cigarettes and the particular dry gin they loved. Once they got to the farm, they would work effortlessly like charged robots, even without taking breakfast, until lunchtime—when food would be ready around 2 p.m. By then, I, who had eaten breakfast, would already be struggling with hunger again, waiting for lunch.

The cigarettes and dry gin were their hack for work. Their body systems had mastered that lifestyle to the point it could do less whenever they didn't feed it with those substances before work.

You want to know my own hack for work?

Apart from food—because that’s very necessary. In fact, I’m not the type that boasts about staying from morning till evening without eating if I’m not fasting. I’ve seen people who boast about not eating all day and make it feel like they’re exercising some superpower. You see, I’m not one of them and I can never be. I love my stomach and I can’t join them in that unnecessary competition.

Seems I’ve said a lot already and not mentioned the hack.

The hack is music.

I’ve wondered a lot about how music works in a way that it energises the body when it’s not even food. Oh, they say music is the food for the soul.

I have this thing with music—I mean the type of music that I love though—that anytime I’m plugged in, I can see myself go into work for very long hours without feeling it.

Like I’ve said countless times, I do laundry work, and the sweetest source of strength to engage in this work is music. Gosh! Once I plug in my earpiece or AirPod, there’s a super strength that comes in, especially when the songs I relate to and can sing along to are playing.

Most times I work all night whenever there’s public electricity, and it’s music that keeps me up and doing through the long night.

How does music do this magic?? I’m yet to figure it out.

Thanks for reading.

This is my entry to Hiveghana prompt.

Image used is mine