Making a Difference

What's at the core of your unfulfillment?

After feeling like my work was pushing a boulder up and down a hill, I found the ideas from the following video to be quite useful:

Here are my takes on the most important ideas of the video...

In 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by the centuries end, technologies would have advanced sufficiently so that countries (like the United States) would be so technologically capable that people wouldn't have to work 40 hour weeks anymore. We could get away with something like a 15 hour work week due to automation.

There is no reason to think that the 15-hour work week shouldn't be possible today. And yet, 40-hour work weeks are still the norm. Why? Anthropologist David Graeber argues that a lot of the work in the modern world has been created to find meaning because most people identify their self-dignity with what they do, even if a lot of people indeed hate their jobs. This is tightly connected to the 40-hour work week. David mentions that, if anything, technology has been marshaled to figure out ways to make us all work more. In doing so, jobs have had to be created that are, in the final analysis, pointless.

Throughout the time I felt unfulfilled, a couple of ideas kept roaming in my mind:

• A YouTube comment I came across one day. It said something along the lines of... "The 20th century promised us that if we worked hard enough, one day we would have time for recreation, the arts & our families. And the machines would do all the work. But things turned out the other way around. Now the machines do all the creative work: they make art, music, and videos while we work more than ever.".
• The importance of a practical life philosophy. In my eyes, it is very clear that we are dealing with at least 2 very distinct types of problems: one of resources essential for living and another of navigating our minds. One is mostly resolved and the other has been overlooked for the longest time. Wouldn't most of us go crazy if all of our problems disappeared? We would most certainly start making problems up. After all, we humans are problem-solving machines. I find all these ideas fascinating and I believe them to be quite true.

All these observations came to me like an epiphany. I felt very much identified with these arguments. After realizing all this, I felt a weight off of my shoulders. Hopefully, you do too.

To contrast corporate jobs, the video then points out that there are a lot of jobs that are very much necessary in our societies:

• Health-related jobs
  • Doctors
  • Nurses
  • Apothecaries
• Blue-collared jobs
  • Mechanics
  • Garbage collectors
• Janitors
• Creative jobs
  • Artists
  • Musicians
  • Writers

And many more. The catch is that most of these jobs are not as sought after because they don't come with as much prestige and compensation as corporate jobs. Paradoxically, these jobs have much more meaning than a corporate job. I can see myself finding my work more meaningful if (for example) I can provide my community with quality ad-hoc woodwork than if I solve one more support case (and re-write the same summary about it 3 times).

When contemplating this situation, the difference between price, value, and money becomes paramount:

• Price is what we have to give up (sacrifice) to get something else. The price of things is usually money, but not always. For example, the price of a high-paying "secure" salary is working a corporate job all your life where you will (probably) be unfulfilled. And the price of working a job meaningful to you is that you may struggle financially at times.
• Value is the worth given to something in the ultimate analysis. There's no real way to accurately measure the value of things. Also, each person has their own ordered list of values; some people put responsibility over friendship, some the other way around. For example, having a good relationship with my family has no price but is of the utmost value to me.
• Money is a promise (usually made by a country) that, at some point in time, you will be returned value in proportion to a number. Money is like a ticket to be given a certain amount of value. But the system is imperfect. A pill that cures me when I'm sick may cost the same amount of money as a pack of cigarettes. Do both of those things give the same amount of value? It's up to each of us to decide.

Hopefully, you now see that you have a choice. Whichever one you make is ok. But what's important is that you know what you are choosing and that you choose deliberately. Are you willing to voluntarily pay the price of what you choose? Is the value of your choice good enough for you? In all honesty, towards my last days at work, I struggled (and I still sometimes do) to see whether the right price (the right sacrifice) was staying at my job or leaving it. In other words, I know I have to confront things. But am I running from the job by quitting? Or am I running from my life's task by staying? In the end, I chose to quit because I found quitting more courageous than staying.

As my favorite saying goes: "Every cloud has a silver lining". If you are currently unfulfilled at your corporate job, don't be sad that you are doing so. Be happy that you've realized that it is not what you want for yourself. Realize that you are free to choose a more meaningful occupation, even if you can't leave your job just yet. But in case you do decide to take the jump, what should you expect? Let's discuss that in the next chapter.