Alas, the time is here for me to attempt to enlighten you all with some sort of new information, thought-provoking idea, or deep nuanced take on something that digs deep at my soul. So I admit, this may come with a bit of exhaustion. Truth is, I have gotten to this task at a much later time than I normally anticipate due to “putting my nose to the grindstone.” After all, if any of us want to be successful in life, it generally has to come from hard work.
I imagine it’s perfectly safe to say that our lives are getting back to what they used to be like just a few long years ago. By that, I mean busy as can be. Despite our leader’s best efforts, the world has not stopped, not in the slightest. The demand for progress is just as strong as ever, even if there are less able-minded individuals ready to take on the responsibility.
It’s actually kind of mind-boggling how someone can sit by and watch as exhausted workers put forward their best effort to hold up systems that few can fully understand outside of simple grievances. When you read about people quitting their jobs en-masse it’s easy to have thoughts of empty offices and abandoned construction lots. When the truth is really rather more tragic.
Instead of tasks being completely abandoned you would sooner find a single individual pushed to their absolute limit as all of their colleagues abandon the responsibilities they once shared. A single employee or two who are using their blood, sweat, and tears to keep the lights on for just one more day. While their former colleagues are chanting at them to join in the abdication of responsibility.
That to me is the thing that is worth fighting for. No matter who it means I am fighting against. We should do everything in our power to either continue or completely revive the ethic that created the very system we survive on. We should reconfigure our systems to incentivize the worker willing to put their life at bay to hold up something greater than themselves. Not the lazy simpleton who lets life’s complexity overwhelm them into destroying everything we rely upon.
The reality is unfortunately opposite. In many cases the single worker left, is not rewarded outside of the transactional agreement that came with the job title. When we negotiate for starting wages, it’s almost always done at the behest of the employer itself who is looking to find the most cost-effective way to have their task handled. Which from a business standpoint is almost easy to understand. There is often little way to gauge how much an employee should be worth because the way we value is based on productivity rather than the actual effort put forward.
We live in a world where if you fulfill a need, or create something that eases the burden of life, there is great reward. For many, this reward is the ability to continue to live in normal society, with a full stomach and a roof over their head. For a few others, the reward is wealth, which is a much less stressful way of measuring the previous reward.
“Having money is a way of being free of money.”
-Albert Camus
The majority of the aforementioned rewards go toward those who put forth the systems that bring these workers together. This is also understandable because in many cases they are largely creating new streams of revenue. CEOs are a key example of the difference in wages earned versus wages created. While the actual laborer receives only what is required. The CEO or Business owner often receives significantly more in order to maintain the ever-growing nature that is required with any successful business. For any source of money to be born, money has to be spent. The very same money that is used to keep many of us above the line of poverty, is also used to create new fountains of revenue that others can use to keep above the same line.
I’m not going to pretend to understand the complex nuance in economics, but even with just this base level of objectivity, it’s not very difficult for me to point out the imbalance towards the laborer vs the labor provider. It’s not often that the CEO or business owners have to worry about the simpler, yet growing ever-more expensive qualities of life. While the laborer has to find a delicate balance between building something bigger, while also staying ahead of the ever-rising tide of inflation. Avoiding being homeless is a damn good motivator…
But what about those that are willing to forgo life’s happier moments in order to provide even more work than what is required. What about the individual that dedicates a hundred hours a week to build or maintain something more? Should we model our expectancy of ethics around these individuals? Should we adjust to working hundred-hour workweeks in order to emulate what is otherwise a superhuman task?
Most people would be quick to judge the boy-genius of our time, Elon-Musk. You want to take about your work ethic, look no further. It is not uncommon for him to sleep on the factory floor after multiple hundred-hour work weeks. For those unaware, Musk is single-handedly the richest human in the world with a net worth of over 278 billion dollars. Many of us would be quick to announce that even a single one of those billion dollars would be a sure-fire way to end poverty for a vast majority of people in the world. If it were only that simple. Most of Elon’s fortune is actually comprised of investments in other companies, assets, and projects that have provided the world with countless new innovations and methods of making our lives more convenient. Not to mention the over 110,000 jobs he has created worldwide. Many of which are some of the hardest jobs one could possibly handle.
Should we as a society hate Elon for being rich, despite the wealth and opportunities he has provided for such a large amount of people? I would posit that we need more people like Elon and fewer that want to “eat the rich.” If there is a perceived imbalance in wealth inequality the answer should not be to hate the CEO, but rather change the way we incentivize those who want to roll up their sleeves. Every society will always have lazy nihilists who want nothing more than to be rewarded for their belief in nothing. I just question why we ever started listening to that sort of negativity in the first place. Why would we encourage people to leave their ethics behind and encourage a collapse that nobody will be able to recover properly?
This is a thought that has plagued me for years. All my life I have been surrounded by individuals with a work ethic that is harder and harder to come by. A dying breed if you will. I have to admit I was rather spoiled growing up and never fully understood the true motivator that kept my family working. I was quite fortunate in my life to never have to understand the alternative. I have wanted nothing more than to be able to bottle that sense of duty and instill it within my own life. A task that I find nigh-impossible with the countless complications that life throws my way. How does one motivate themselves to go above and beyond at all hours when their life has no need for such an extreme?
Many of these people you see working alone, holding up a single business, have seen what it is like to not have food in their stomachs, or a roof over their heads. It’s quite often that the thought of rock-bottom is a burning motivator for individuals to push past the nihilistic tendencies of complacency. It’s a fire that burns inside certain individuals that often comes from a deep understanding of what happens when people don’t work. There is something rather unsettling, yet incredibly profound in our realization that work motivates life.
I don’t believe work should be purely transactional either, in fact, I would prefer if society aimed in the opposite direction. I know many people who are willing to take a lower wage in order to do what they are passionate about. I wish we had more of that. I wish we worked for the benefit of society, not because it’s the only way to feed our family. However, life is not that simple. I’m not saying we all have to be Elon, but we do need to have a better sense of duty towards the world around us. This is a topic that I could go on for hours about, as I could find myself typing out about all of the complications of money also being extracted from the average worker, reducing the overall value of the dollar but alas I have other duties to attend to.
Just remember folks, nothing in life is free.
Thank you for reading
-The Young Fool
