Note from Caleb: I recently received the below story from a reader and wanted to share it with you today. Here is what she said about her inspiration for writing it.
“I wrote it at work before I knew anything about blogging, twitter, Pocket Changed, Smart Passive Income, Think Traffic, etc. It was my breaking point. It just sort of hit me all at once and I just wrote.. .I don’t regret leaving (my job) and I will never, ever do anything that makes me unhappy ever again. Then I wondered why I ever decided to do something that made me unhappy.”
If you are drifting through life this might just be the wake-up call you need. It is a raw and eye-opening account of what people’s lives have become.
This is a guest post by Elizabeth Seda of A Life on Your Terms.
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The human being has been gaining more and more independence in body and mind since we figured that being bipedal would give us an advantage in the evolutionary hierarchy.
As a group of people we still have the same basic dependencies. As an individual we now have more choices about who, what, where, and how we want to be. These choices are only recently becoming clear to us, although they became available to us long ago.
Before the arrival of the big JC we functioned as a pack. In the same way that a pack of dogs would subconsciously set values and needs, our values and needs were set in relation to the pack. It’s important to realize that functioning in a pack does not necessarily mean that you mean goodwill to all of your species. Your actions are tied to your pack and only your pack. The survival of yourself and your family depended on your pack. Period.
When the big JC came and told us that all human packs were equal, we began to depend on each other, or ‘brother love’ for the maintenance of our life. Speaking in broadly general terms, we ceased being single nomadic packs and began forming the embryo of a civilization.
Empires were formed out of thousands of packs and pack leaders were weaned out based on the strength of their iron fist. In this way, civilizations began to depend on their emperor, directly or indirectly for the maintenance of their life.
We began working as a team, trading skill for skill, product for product (generally speaking). A boy born into a trade would not suddenly exclaim to his father “I don’t know dad. I don’t think being a blacksmith is for me.” If this were so, we would be living in a much different universe. In this stage, we began to depend directly on our neighbors for the maintenance of our life.
In More Recent Times
Fast forward a few dozen centuries of ideas, progress, and evolution, until we stumble upon the 1900’s. Opportunity and entrepreneurship became feats that anyone with the mind and will could reach.
Now fast forward to today, where anyone with an internet connection and a few hundred dollars in savings can create an empire using, as resources, the other empires that other penniless entrepreneurs developed. We have come close to full independence. We don’t have to depend directly on anyone to sustain our life. Nearly anyone, from almost anywhere, can do just about anything they can think of with the right training and ½ the brain power of our predecessors.
Unfortunately, we have not made full use of our new opportunities. We’ve lived as pack and pack leader for so long that it has become instinctive to want to join an already well established pack.
We grow up surrounded by well-intentioned adults shepherding us into the path of the safe and certain. We aren’t forbidden to take the roads less traveled, but we are strongly advised against it. So, for fear of bankruptcy, homelessness, failure, and being disowned by our parents and society, we continue on the path of mediocrity.
We then spend the 8 years wasting our time studying and trying to find a ‘good job’, only to discover that, usually, working for someone is only marginally better than being homeless in Russia during the Red Revolution. In other words, we spend years fine tuning our skills so that we can offer them to the biggest and baddest pack that will take us. Rarely are we encouraged to form a pack of our own based on our own beliefs and live on our own terms.
In no time we find ourselves stripped of independence, questioning our basic principles, and denying ourselves any thoughts that stray from what seems to be reality and any actions that may be viewed upon as irresponsible, immature, or impractical.
Graduate to What?
Although we never allow ourselves to fully feel it, most of us know by the time we graduate college that we will eventually end up blissfully miserable. Our lives will consist of working mostly apathetically for a cause that we don’t believe in, for a boss we learn to hate, and expanding extraordinary amounts of energy trying to ‘beat the system.’ Yet for all the moaning we do about serving a corporate master, we let it happen. We gladly sold our soul for a place under the wing of a company guaranteeing safety, comfort, and an unlimited lifetime supply to worms (slimy yet satisfying!).
There are some of you fortunate enough to have gone through the vicious cycle and come out with a job you love. Good for you. You are the exception.
There are those of you who were able to escape the cycle. Again, good for you. This is me giving you a pat on the back. I admire your courage to take control and assume personal responsibility for your life.
Then there are those who will cry out in indignation ‘I am not a corporate Zombie! I am a realist. I have to put food on the table and I can’t afford to take risks! Everyone has to work for someone and no one likes it!’
I have a question for you: Do you really think it isn’t risky depending on the loyalty of your company for the livelihood of your family? What makes you think that you, as a human resource, are worth more than your salary, benefits, and perks when costs need cutting?
When it comes to comparing the risks between working for yourself, or working for someone else, they average out to be about equal. The risks in each situation are different, but the result is the same. Getting fired and failing at a business venture result in the same thing: unemployment. Why would you take such a risk by working at a job you hate?
The Truth
Might as well take the same risk doing something you love.
There are those of you who recognize the feeling of living in the situation that seems like you are being pulled down into quicksand, and you find that escape only leads to a circle of fire. Paralyzed by the fear of being burned to death and the increasing force of the sand when you struggle, you stay still and complacent. You watch every inch of yourself disappear into the sand. Only when the sand reaches your chin do you question whether you’ve made the right choice.
By that time, it’s too late.
What are you waiting for?
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
I love it. It almost reads like a letter to self (which based on the history of this post seems like it may have been).
I’ve had that same analysis of risk for sure, but I never really looked at the evolution of humans in the way this post describes - pretty awesome.
There are still plenty of populations in the world that are more “primal.” I’m sure this will change as people from countries like the U.S. travel there to escape the hustle and bustle and expose them to new ideas.
But in the mean time, I almost view it as a responsibility. We have this ability now. Something previous generations never had (as clearly stated in this post). It would be a shame to squander it on mediocrity.
Hi Eugene! Yes it actually is a letter to myself. I was just sitting there at work and it just hit me. I started writing like mad, and when I was done there everything was clear. I wasn’t a pack-mate, I was a pack-leader. No wonder I was always getting in trouble at work!
I think that your mind is the most valuable thing you have. I don’t want anyone to waste theirs. Pack-mate or pack-leader, both are noble courses, but make a conscience decision. Don’t default to pack-mate without thought. That’s what I was thinking, and I’m glad there are some people out there who don’t think I’m bananas.
Exactly. Leave the mediocrity to people in the past. We have the opportunities now to take life to the next level.
Elizabeth,
I think you’re right. I learned a tough lesson trying to depend on someone else for my cash flow. So much so it drove me insane. Even in my older job, in the air force, people who thought they had a career are getting tossed onto the street and their contracts aren’t getting renewed.
I think we are heading back in time. To a time where we all had to leave the cave and scourage for our food to survive. We all depended on our own skills to earn a living. Sometime between then and now we became sheep, depending on someone else to provide us with food and shelter (money).
I think things are going to seriously change in the next hundred years. Not that money will become obsolete, but we will go back to the bartering system. I buy my food from your website; you buy your television from mine. Something to that effect, where companies begin to get smaller as more entrepreneurs decide they can do their own thing.
Jamie,
I was thinking along those lines as I was writing, and I thought that maybe instead of trading product for product, we learn to trade value for real value.
That’s exactly what bartering is isn’t it? Trading. The product of one mans mind for the product of another man’s mind.
In this way, we won’t have to revert to cave man status! We can take advantage of the distribution of work.
You love extracting honey from bees you say? Well what a coincidence because I love honey and I noticed you need a new driveway. Sounds like a deal to me.
Know you real worth and live with your whole mind rather than copying the actions of those before you. You know?
Yeah Elizabeth, that’s exactly it.
I would love it to be that way. I’m going to try and do it now and everyone reading PC is probably too. We got in there early
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I will be interested to see if this era of big corporations that started in the early 1900′s really will exist for a long time. The things they can accomplish are large in scope and size, but at what human cost?
Great stuff. along with the other post on becoming complacent. To work for some person or company and have to worry about how they can run or ruin a business well sucks. To be told if and when you can take a vacation or how much time you can have with a sick family member cuts to the sole of why you need to be able to take care of your own lifestyle and time.
You really hit a sore spot for me with your comment! I really resented having to ration my ten days of vacation with my family.
Someone else gets to decide what’s important enough if your life to miss work because we can’t be trusted to make rational decisions about our lives.
When you ask why you can’t have more vacation, they just say that’s the policy. Last time I checked, “policy” was not one of the Laws of Physics.
Instead of having an adult business relationship, we’re forced to beg for permission to claim a day of our life as our own.
The freedom can be both a blessing and a curse. I’d say I work more now than I did when I was a regular employee, but I have more freedom to work when and where I want.
That is what makes it worth it.
Hi Caleb, that was a great post there, I loved every bit of it. I live with one purpose only to get the hell out of my current job; I want it so bad I feel like am choking, if you get my drift. It’s not been easy, setbacks here and there but am not giving up no matter the cost.
I agree with your comment, but I feel, it’s not just about working more hours than when you had your traditional job, but also about enjoying yourself while doing it. If you are enjoying what you are doing, it won’t seem like work at all and you will be adding value to peoples’ lives at the same time.
Brilliant, Elizabeth! I think the tricky part is figuring out get the message out there early enough. It’s amazing how quickly people reach the point of feeling stuck, even when they’re not.
I was talking to a friend yesterday who is in his 20s, single, no kids, rented apartment… and he was telling me he was jealous that I quit my job and am driving across the country. I said, “Why are you jealous? You could do this too,” and he just paused for a minute and then said, “Oh. Yeah. I guess I could.”
I used to think that way! That I couldn’t because I had just gotten out of college. Then a few years later it’s because I have dogs. Then it’s because I bought a house.
You know what I just now discovered? The more you start to value happiness over comfort, you magically need less money.
Also, about the driving across the country, are you going to document that? Give me tips for when I’m ready! We are saving for an RV and then hitting the road!
Absolutely! I started ‘minimalising’ this past year, and with my last few paychecks was amazed at how much of it I was able to put in savings and didn’t really need… the same paycheck that used to disappear within a few days of me getting it.
not documenting it, mostly because I’m just visiting a few people and then racing across the rest of the country to get to WDS… it’s not really a well-planned or scenic trip. I’m hoping to do more of it in the near future though. That’s exciting about the RV!
That is awesome Sarah.
See you at WDS!
Thanks, Caleb! Looking forward to it.
This was great. Thanks for inspiring me to get off my butt, get my product launched, and to quit my job which is driving me to an early grave.
Awesome Shawn. Keep at it and get that product out there! You’ll learn (and hopefully earn) a lot.
Wow Elizabeth,
This definitely paint a rather dark picture of the reality of the working world. Though, I must admit the more I read it, the more I agreed with it. You paint a very honest and real situation in which I was left staring at the screen thinking “She is right.”
I think the greatest risk of all is to continue living a life of mediocrity. If I move forward everyday setting for less I am putting my happiness, my sense of purpose, and my sense of hope all on the line. Yet, so many people are willing to sacrifice all of these things in the name of security. Which in reality doesn’t even exist.
In many ways I consider it less risky to step out and try to find a deeper purpose for my life… If I fail where am I? I just return to where I was previously. But in my experience this doesn’t happen.
I moved to Japan about a year ago to pursue my childhood dream (to become a ninja). Though, there have a been a plethora of unforseeing challenges my conviction has only become more passionate and more intense. Interesting how it works that way
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Hi Izzy,
First of all, I want to say wow! You are in Japan trying to become a Ninja. Some reactions would have been “that’s crazy” or “why”, but you don’t get that kind of reaction among the people at PC.
As for my post, I guess it is kind of dark now that I look at it again. I just wanted to tell people about how I realized that we have to wake up and make a volitional choice. We really do have a choice! A choice to become online business owners, travel hackers, and ninjas! Don’t just default to what people before you have done. Take control. If that means that you work at a corporate job, then great! But make that choice deliberately and will full acknowledgement that you’ve evaluated every choice and that’s the one for you.
I admire people like you. Life gave you lemons. What did you do? You didn’t make lemonade. You chucked them back and asked for oranges instead.
Liz
I love this! One of the things that’s most frustrating at a job is the lack of control you have over certain outcomes. I work in scheduling and if I had a dollar for every exception the managers made that I recommended against… anyway, I’m in a very secure and very mediocre job. Great company, but my position has no advancement (that I want, anyway) and I’m basically topped out for pay. I’ll never get laid off (honestly, this company doesn’t lay anyone off, in their whole history) but I’ll never go anywhere either.
One thing I’ve noticed in the corporate world is that advancement is usually more of a curse than a blessing. You get more responsibility, more hours, and more stress. Oh, and of course more pay - but that doesn’t make it worth it to me. I want more LIFE!!
So, I started my own business doing content creation and it’s growing slowly but surely. In a year I’ve gone from nothing to a consistent $1100+ a month. I’ve given myself permission to take my own path and take my time if needed to do this right. And I love it. I hope to be able to quit my corporate job in a year or two.
Thanks for the inspiration!!
Hi Anna!
That’s really amazing that even with the comfort and the stability, you still decided to go at it on your own. It’s one of the most dangerous places to be if you are trying to escape. No sense of urgency!
But it looks like you’ve taken your life into your own hands.
I love owning my life and owning my work. There is no greater feeling. I hope you can quit your corporate job sooner rather than later. After all, like you said, getting a promotion is almost never worth it. They always want more and more. It will never be enough for them.
So if you don’t love it, then don’t work your butt off for them. Work your butt off for you.
Thanks for a really really beautiful article. I work in a IT MNC for an American Client. Yes, i am outsourced. It feels like the company pays you for the for what ever the client demands from you. Normal work hours are just a dream for me. These people decide my time when I come to office and when i leave. They ping me at the last moment I am leaving for the day and make me sit more than an hour or so. I feel like shitting my job, but when i see at my friends they dont have a job i feel what if i dont get a job and am unemployed!! I cant take the risk. Am 22 & life for me has just became a SAFE PLAY.
I read this article, I dont know when i would get the strength to actually implemet in my life.
Hi Dhruv,
It’s true. To your company, you’re just another resource. Just like the building you work in, the chairs you sit in, and the equipment you use.
They do control you, just like they control those resources.
But you don’t have to be a resource. You’re not just a resource. You’re a human being with ideas and intelligence and dreams and passion. You’re young and the possibilities in front of you are limitless. There’s nothing to be afraid of Dhruv. The only thing you should be afraid of is wasting too much time being a resource for someone else rather than living a life of your own.
I don’t know where you live, but unemployment isn’t always the worse thing in the world.
I hope you start soon. I really really do.
Thanks for stopping by and I’m glad you liked my story.
Liz
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