I remember, being 12 years old, and wanting so badly to work in the fields. I would watch my cousin, friends, and friends of the family covered in sweat and dirt from a hard day's work. I don't know what attracted me to the fields: maybe it was the physical and mental toughness required to work in the fields. Or maybe it was that discipline my cousin and her friend displayed, waking up every day, sometimes at 3 a.m., lunch packed, and getting on the crowded van with the rest of the field workers. It definitely was not the money they made that was appealing to me, I didn't care for that. Whatever the attraction was, all I knew is that I had to get my hands dirty.

I remember begging my mother to please, allow me to work. She said that that kind of work was not for me, and that I belonged in an office, where there was air conditioning, and I was in front of a computer. I didn't listen, and begged her until she let me.

Summer of 2003, Chowchilla, California

For most of my summer, I woke up at 3 a.m. My mom prepared lunch for me: usually a couple of meat, bean, and vegetable burritos. Some homemade hibiscus beverage, and a snack. And off I walked to my aunts' home across town, where my ride awaited. My cousin, and a family friend, waited for me to arrive. My favorite part of the drive was the fresh air, the radio playing El Piolin, a Spanish radio station, where they would tell jokes. It was a 30 to 45 minute drive, and the silence in the car was louder than the dogs barking outside. We all knew, without saying a word, what the day was to bring.

We would arrive to the squash fields at around 6:30 a.m. We waited for a man, I guess the manager, to wave us over. He assigned us each a field. I was a small boy, so he assigned me to an adult at first. My cousin was quick to claim me, and she took care of me the rest of the time.

It wasn't hard picking up a bucket, and a knife, and bending down to cut the squash from its root. Not until you're doing it a thousand times, all day, and your back goes numb, do you realize how hard it is. I have no clue how I did it, but I lasted. I had the stamina and endurance to keep on. I eventually transitioned to carrying the 50 lb. buckets and boxes of squash, once they were ready to be loaded on to the truck. I'd walk across the entire field to that truck, but loved it every step of the way.

Coming home, early in the afternoon, after a long day's work was the most incredible feeling in the world. I felt like a grown ass man, covered in dirt, eating my chicken dinner like I had never eaten in my life. I was satisfied, and had a newfound respect for my cousin, friends and other field workers I knew, that was a whole new level.

I would go on to work the fields many summers after that.

Fall of 2016, New York City

Now I sit here, in my air conditioned office where I am an Analyst for an advertisement media company. I am in the finance department, making sure that the money is flowing in, and out as it should. I sit here, thinking of those times in the California squash fields, remembering the pure joy and satisfaction of a hard day's work, and that vivid feeling of accomplishment. When I find myself in need of motivation, I think about that hard working kid, with the unfaltering determination to work like the big men did. I think about that kid and that summer in the California fields, and only hope I could be like him, when I grow up.