It must be hard living in Scott Adams' head.Quote: Dilbert: "Are you aware that all jobs require you to do things you'd rather not do? That's why they have to pay you."
Sounds logical. But I beg to differ. Even people who enjoy their jobs immensely get paid. As a matter of fact those people tend to get paid the most.
People get paid to work because their products are valuable, not because working is unpleasant.
Working is only unpleasant if you have misplaced yourself in life.
Those who do what they love to do are healthy, longlived and rich. PERIOD.
ReplyDeleteAdam,
ReplyDeleteI didn't know sweat was actually manufactured in shops. Although the name of the Lebanese drink Arak actually means "sweat". Tastes quite different though...
However, I found out the nature of the forced labor imposed on people who were sent to the freezing goulag in Siberia : all day long (and over there, the day lasts 6 months), they had to carve the ice into ice cubes, for exporting to the decadent Western millionaire clubs. Caviar AND champagne ice were made in the USSR.
"What arrogant and condescending nonsense!"
ReplyDeleteI agree completely, Adam. Work is, unfortuately, a necessary evil. No one I've ever known was happy at their job.
Adam and A,
ReplyDeleteI am very saddened to hear that work to you and your friends is comparable to child labor camps. That must be a dreadful life.
Eolake,
ReplyDeleteYou are so right!! I decided to not work jobs that are not fulfilling, spiritually, mentally and physically.
I now make sculptures of beautiful women. It is not even work, it is just what I do in my life. This takes dedication and many hours of focus, but of course it is worth it. I have seen your site and It has inspired me.
You either live on the creative plane or the competitive plane. Those that can't relate most likely never will. I want to thank you for what you have created.
Shawn
"With that number affected, it can't just be down to individuals."
ReplyDeleteThere is a friggin deep question for you.
Can an individual really be set free from the outside? The life that people in the western world have now is *paradise* compared to a couple hundred years ago. And yet many people are still miserable.
I believe profound change can only come from within.
If you hate a company that much, don't work for it.
ReplyDeleteBefore becoming self-employed, I worked for four different companies, all small by American standards. Three of those were great workplaces.
Eolake,
ReplyDeleteClearly, you haven't had the misfortune of living and having to work in a country like Lebanon. I'll sum it up real briefly : nearly all local bosses are obtuse insecure slave-drivers. Those who were any more open or competent emigrated to work in the West during the war.
"If you hate a company that much, don't work for it."
I tend to plain hate company, does that count? I work hard to avoid having unwanted company...
More seriously, the fact that in today's world you have little other choice but to enter the machinery of corporate employment, at some scale or another, may explain why being asked for implicit gratitude by a selfish tyrannic miser boss would cause unhappiness to a great number. A half-naked Namibian Imba nomad raising his herds in the desert has no master but himself and the world. Which may explain why the authorities are deliberately trying to eradicate their indigen culture. Perhaps because their simple and happy life is considered a threat to "the System"?... Namibia is working triple shifts towards "modernity".
Admitted, "the West" today sees a practical life security unheard of... in theory. But at the price of perhaps something just as precious. Are we happier today, with no more wolves or sabretooth tigers threatening to gobble us up at night should we let the fire go out, but knowing other things just as uncontrollable may destroy our current life, like company relocations in a poorer country, or some irresponsible tyrant pressing the Red Button at the other side of the planet, or a hybrid human-bird flu pandemic? We no longer have to chase and hunt our food... but most of our food, our water, the air we breathe, might very well be poisoned, and causing that ever-increasing number of cancers. We cannot count any more on the illusory comfort of praying to an idol, the Elements, the Sky, or a God that really doesn't seem to interfere much in today's massive dramas (Rwanda, Cambodia, Nazi Germany, famins in China and the USSR...). People have stopped believing in beautiful simplistic tales of Justice from Above. Or, they join cults...
Not to darken the picture, but there ARE still grave problems. Before 2003, an Iraqi would never have believed that Saddam's fearsome dictatorship and the embargo + daily U.S. bombings would actually appear as a much lesser evil than the insane anarchy he lives in today. And, this is directly linked, in a way, to threats to a Westerner's safety like 9/11 or the other notorious terrorist bombings, however few victims they actually make compared to the slightest war. The world is becoming smaller, and it really seems like the threats are getting more numerous, and more unescapable. You can face a hyena with a spear, but how do you fight back against unemployment, inflation, or the Louisiana floods? Feels like blowing against a tempest. Me, one of the things that worry me most, apart from the near future of the country I live in (lovely touristic Lebanon), is the climatic change. My grandmother, in France, now lives in THE hottest region of this country. Is there any safe place anymore? Probably not, and we feel SO helpless about it. In a few years, Malaria will cross the Mediterranean. Excuse me for saying this, but we have more to fear than fear itself, although fear is no small enemy and I fight it back daily.
Remember the tale of Superman : the people of Krypton lived in a paradise civilization, but one day their whole world just blew up. Granted, they didn't suffer, but still I'd rather avoid such a fate. If possible. Call me an idealist.
I believe there is more to the general dissatisfaction than a timeless taste for self-pitying and an overabundance of media coverage (which I carefuly avoid). Things are definitely changing, but it doesn't really feel like the world is becoming better. Though I stubbornly insist on seeing silver linings on the darkest clouds. My optimism still belongs to ME!
One last thing : "Stakhanov-workwhore"?... Do I detect the hint of a subliminal dissatisfaction toward the duty of hard work here, Johnny? ;-)