Working for What?

                                                      

                 Working For What?
What are we working for? What do we value? Is it REALLY money or is it the idea that someday we’ll have enough money to relax and enjoy ourselves; we’ll be able to live the lives we’ve hoped for after so many punches in the timecard? What if we could skip the timecards and administrations that demand working through pandemics and the first few years with our first child? What if we could dismiss those that consider time off to drink wine and have stimulating conversations with our fellow human beings a luxury only to be observed after a hard week’s work? 

There is so much up for understanding about the complexity of the human brain and we have been born into a particularly tricky point in time where the internet and ease of technology has allowed our minds to have much more free time. People used to have to work all day to produce a good to trade to survive. With the industrial revolution, people had to still work, but much less when it comes to producing goods (crops, tools, etc), and then socializing came into the forefront and people had to work to get to know one another in a different arena aside from tribal gossip, ushering in socialites and early money/power  that our country is founded on. We had to become impressive to others when others had more to care about aside from what we could materialize for them for trade.
Past that, we eventually had the luxury to seek out activities that are fun, relaxing or exciting; that got easier with radio, television and telecommunications in general. Then the internet blew up (when so many of us where in our formative years) and everything is now at our fingertips. We just have so much time to think and overthink.

We see people that are so "able" to manage their time and we feel this shame and guilt for not being there but in all honesty, those people are usually in the minority and the masses are just struggling to keep up. Our DNA tells us, at its core, that we are meant to be in survival mode more than relaxation mode and that manifests in odd ways, such as anxiety for not being good enough or impressive enough to maintain these social statuses that aren’t serving us as much as they once did. Even the top-tier celebrities or entrepreneurs are slaves to fame and maintaining certain personas. It’s not encoded in our DNA to do the things we’re being pressured to do. Of course, we can work hard at a certain career and maintain a steady salary if we’re motivated by these things- but I haven’t met a single person who isn’t concerned by the wealth disparity that seems truly in touch with who they are outside of what they’ve been told they’re supposed to become. Amongst those, I haven’t met someone who wasn’t frustrated by their salary or the work/play ratio that their job allows. I’ve never met a single person that wouldn’t accept a dollar amount to keep them satisfied without work.  People love the sense of satisfaction of being a part of something helpful or important but plenty of people want to share their gifts and abilities with the world without having to do it on some higher-ups timesheet. And people with this dream and the necessary ‘tenacity’ are plenty well-off doing their own thing. AND some people just want to live a slow and quiet life, not glamorizing the lifestyle of working hard to play hard. And how dare that be denied? 
So why is our work ethic still valued as a measure of success or worth? 

This is us being controlled by our old DNA; it’s us subscribing to old practices that keep us wondering what it would be like to have the time off we deserve. The time off we could be using to bond with family and friends, the time we could be using to learn about new concepts, to have stimulating conversations without worrying about reputation, whether ours or the person we’re hoping to discuss an important topic with without meeting some stifled reflection of who they think they should be.
I don’t know how to fix this, but I bet if we had more time and more freedom to discuss topics like this- we could collectively get to the bottom of a better tomorrow.