The Job Deserves Only What It Pays
Let me dream, if I still can,
Of a world without war,
And a life without plans,
That live or die by work.
It has been several years of busyness. No real breaks, no wholehearted devotion to trivial pursuits, no prioritisation of self. It is as if life has become work and work has become a life, and the balance that preserves sanity has turned out to be just a myth.
I allowed it, sold the invaluable (time and presence of mind) at a shameful price in an inherently unfair exchange with hidden costs and invisible fine print. In my conscious naïveté, much has been given up for too little.
While taking stock, I realised the compounding effect of letting myself go over and over again. I had made this compromise so often that suppressing my once-strong desire for self-actualisation outside of an organisational role became the norm a long time ago, set as default without any real internal debate because a habit is a powerful thing that rewires the brain. And I didn’t even know it.
My resistance to my own foolishness did not become flimsy in one moment of weakness. It faded slowly, as resolve gave way to coercive permission in feeble acquiescence.
We accept whatever (self-)treatment we think is okay.
None of this is okay.
The master said to the slave,
“Choose a sunrise to fight for your freedom,
And though you might not win it that day,
Your self-belief could yet earn you a kingdom.”
Slavery isn’t a choice, but defiance will always be a decision. Perhaps, then, the worst kind of slavery is the kind that deceives with the illusion that there’s no choice – no room to pursue a different life, no allowance for an about-turn along a path that we’re not actually chained to.
Or the kind that holds captive with the fear of failure, keeping us coasting down the road to nowhere because a U-turn is supposedly a tricky manoeuvre that could go wrong. So we abandon what society defines as a pipe dream and maintain course because we’re afraid of a change that has the power to shatter whatever fragile, barely-there comforts are offered as compensation for absolute compliance.
But of what value are comforts that run on one’s life blood? Who cuts off their own hand just so they can have a scratcher for their back? The reprieve is too brief to justify the investment.
So, what now?
There’s a need for an uprising, and it begins with standing up to myself.
When the world discovered reflection,
Two other truths were made known too:
The enemy to fear is the one made without intention,
Your closest friend is always the one staring back at you.
There are two sides constantly battling within me: the people-pleasing obliger and the self-loving rebel. The enemy and the friend, both staring me down in the mirror of truth.
The obliger has grown strong over the years, nurtured by my repeated surrender to conventions that I never actually approved of and standards of occupational behaviour that are in conflict with what I want for myself.
To overpower the obliging side of me, I must consistently feed the rebellious side with actions of self-love:
1. Putting myself first at least as often as I put myself second.
2. Carving up my schedule to reclaim time for things that don’t have a price tag on them.
3. Choosing moments to do nothing at all.
4. Ignoring the now-familiar guilt of idleness that always interrupts the peace I find in doing nothing until I can no longer hear it.
5. And making peace with the fact that the primary purpose of work is to make a living, not to replace living.
When the capitalist clock strikes five,
Or six on unavoidably longer days,
I change my heart and swap lives,
The job deserves only what it pays.