I’ll start by saying that I want to make a positive contribution to making the world a better place and I’m not afraid of hard work. In fact, I enjoy the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction in a job well done that employment provides. Having been unemployed for more than six months now, I’ve been struggling with my work ethic. Or maybe I should say that my work ethic is trying to kill me.
It keeps saying things like “You’re a lazy good-for-nothing”, and “You can’t attend social functions. What are you going to say when they ask what you do for a living?” and “You’re a pathetic charity case”. I’m trying to keep it at bay by wearing myself out doing home improvement projects for friends, sending out dozens of resumes a week, and studying Spanish to improve my value to potential employers. But this judging myself before others have a chance to just hasn't let up, even though I’m working harder and with more self-discipline than if I had an actual job.
Desperate for a little relief, I did some research on the history of the work ethic, which began with the ancient Greeks. Unlike the ancient Greeks who owned slaves and had a strict caste system, (yes, it’s true, their democracy was for landowners only) I have no objection to physical labor and don’t find it demeaning in any way. However, I find myself in agreement with Plato, who said that the only way to avoid slavery would be to abolish private property. I now believe that the invention of “private property”, seized, maintained, and expanded by force, represents our true expulsion from the garden of Eden.
It was the end of sensible nomad-ism, mutual cooperation and traveling to where food and water are plentiful, provided by nature. Our society is built on the precepts of private property and slavery. From the moment that the majority of us are born, we are doomed to spending most of our lives earning money to pay landowners for the right to occupy space and continue breathing. How did landowners originally get to be landowners? Through murder, extortion, and slavery, with the aggressors passing laws after the fact to make these things illegal for everyone else. (Unless, of course, they got their cut of the profits)
Calvin and Luther taught that hard work would get you into heaven as well as improve your circumstances here on earth. They really went the distance to improve the bottom line for employers by disseminating that belief. Apparently, every possible abusive way of sustaining that belief was instilled in me as a child. As an adult, my intellect knows that my value as a human being isn't determined by how much money I make.
Even if the getting into heaven part were true, with employers paying $10.00 an hour with no benefits to employees with college degrees and school loans, it’s no longer true that having a job will improve your earthly circumstances. (I’ll add here that I’m all for my own wages being reduced if it means that five-year-olds in “third world” countries won’t need to have a full-time job to help their families eat while I grow bloated and lazy from the fruits of their labors.)
This is part of the problem with long-term unemployment–you have a lot of time to think, and you start viewing things from the perspective of an outsider. You begin to realize that society has an unspoken agreement to play their roles in maintaining the status quo while closing their eyes and keeping quiet about how the status quo came to be.
The longer I remain unemployed, the more distasteful the idea of contributing to the continued existence of such a sick society becomes to me. Since there are so few jobs left that make the world a better place, I had to adjust my criteria to being willing to accept a job that just didn’t make the world a worse place. . Here is my criteria, the same criteria I use in making investments:
1. The product has to physically exist and be purchased through the free will of the consumer.
2. The job must not involve dishonesty, exploitation of the poor, or contribute to violence, coercion or addiction.
I’m saddened by how few opportunities there are in our current economy for someone with a REAL work ethic, rather than one defined only by one’s degree of unquestioning willingness to efficiently and capably do anything to survive and “get ahead”.
Copyright © 2015 by Andrea L. Walker
All rights reserved.
It keeps saying things like “You’re a lazy good-for-nothing”, and “You can’t attend social functions. What are you going to say when they ask what you do for a living?” and “You’re a pathetic charity case”. I’m trying to keep it at bay by wearing myself out doing home improvement projects for friends, sending out dozens of resumes a week, and studying Spanish to improve my value to potential employers. But this judging myself before others have a chance to just hasn't let up, even though I’m working harder and with more self-discipline than if I had an actual job.
Desperate for a little relief, I did some research on the history of the work ethic, which began with the ancient Greeks. Unlike the ancient Greeks who owned slaves and had a strict caste system, (yes, it’s true, their democracy was for landowners only) I have no objection to physical labor and don’t find it demeaning in any way. However, I find myself in agreement with Plato, who said that the only way to avoid slavery would be to abolish private property. I now believe that the invention of “private property”, seized, maintained, and expanded by force, represents our true expulsion from the garden of Eden.
It was the end of sensible nomad-ism, mutual cooperation and traveling to where food and water are plentiful, provided by nature. Our society is built on the precepts of private property and slavery. From the moment that the majority of us are born, we are doomed to spending most of our lives earning money to pay landowners for the right to occupy space and continue breathing. How did landowners originally get to be landowners? Through murder, extortion, and slavery, with the aggressors passing laws after the fact to make these things illegal for everyone else. (Unless, of course, they got their cut of the profits)
Calvin and Luther taught that hard work would get you into heaven as well as improve your circumstances here on earth. They really went the distance to improve the bottom line for employers by disseminating that belief. Apparently, every possible abusive way of sustaining that belief was instilled in me as a child. As an adult, my intellect knows that my value as a human being isn't determined by how much money I make.
Even if the getting into heaven part were true, with employers paying $10.00 an hour with no benefits to employees with college degrees and school loans, it’s no longer true that having a job will improve your earthly circumstances. (I’ll add here that I’m all for my own wages being reduced if it means that five-year-olds in “third world” countries won’t need to have a full-time job to help their families eat while I grow bloated and lazy from the fruits of their labors.)
This is part of the problem with long-term unemployment–you have a lot of time to think, and you start viewing things from the perspective of an outsider. You begin to realize that society has an unspoken agreement to play their roles in maintaining the status quo while closing their eyes and keeping quiet about how the status quo came to be.
The longer I remain unemployed, the more distasteful the idea of contributing to the continued existence of such a sick society becomes to me. Since there are so few jobs left that make the world a better place, I had to adjust my criteria to being willing to accept a job that just didn’t make the world a worse place. . Here is my criteria, the same criteria I use in making investments:
1. The product has to physically exist and be purchased through the free will of the consumer.
2. The job must not involve dishonesty, exploitation of the poor, or contribute to violence, coercion or addiction.
I’m saddened by how few opportunities there are in our current economy for someone with a REAL work ethic, rather than one defined only by one’s degree of unquestioning willingness to efficiently and capably do anything to survive and “get ahead”.
Copyright © 2015 by Andrea L. Walker
All rights reserved.
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