I’ve been writing a lot on my personal blog about this, but that one’s in Portuguese, and I guess most of this blog’s readers won’t understand most of it. Besides, I’ve been wanting to write about this in a less personal way, so this is it.
A couple of days, I was at home, working on a new mini-site (I’m on vacation, for 2 weeks, that’s why I’ve been posting more here and in my other blogs), it was a nice day, and I went for a walk, for about half an hour. It felt really good, and it got me thinking on how this is the proper, natural way to live, instead of spending most of your days in an office, as if in a jail.
A common phenomenon which most people doesn’t realize exists is this: people have very short memories, and little to no sense of history. So, when something is done in a particular way for a couple of generations, people simply stop questioning, accept that way as the way, the only way, the natural way, and forget that it was ever done differently, that it can be done differently.
There are countless examples of this, but the one I want to write about is this: jobs.
The Martian already wrote about it: Man’s REAL natural state. I couldn’t agree with him more. I won’t repeat most of his post here, of course, except for this: at some dark point in history, it became “normal” for us to work 8 hours a day or more, with little perspective of improvement, not for ourselves but for others, and to only have some free time to enjoy life after we retire, at 65 or more. It became “normal” - and we’ve forgotten that it wasn’t always like that, that there is another way. “Not having a job”, these days, is one of the things people fear the most, when it should be what they desire - because it’s the only way to grow, and to really enjoy life.
Some people like to have a “normal”, stable job. They like the security of having that certain amount of money at the end of the week or month, even though they may not be working as much - or as well - as they could or should. They like the way that they’re not being “tested”, that they don’t have to constantly do better, to be smart, to create, to innovate.
But that’s so… limiting! Here, I have to refer to a podcast by Steve Pavlina, where, among other things, he says that any time you’re working for someone else, in a “normal” job, is wasted time, because you’re not growing, evolving, working for yourself, doing anything to improve your life. You’re just surviving, nothing more. You’ve convinced yourself that having a regular job is the only way to live, that anyone without a job is unlucky, and you can’t conceive that you could be doing so much more… and for yourself, for a change.
Now, I still have a job. Why don’t I practice what I preach? Because, unfortunately, I didn’t learn all of this some years sooner. If I had, life would be great now. But I have debts, a low salary, and my sites (I plan on being a full-time writer, blogger and web designer) still don’t earn me enough to pay my debts and bills. So I have to keep my job, and work in my personal projects in what little free time I have, and it takes some time for them to flourish and earn me enough. But it will happen. Afterwards, working full time on them, the sky is the limit. 
And I know I’ll be much happier then. Because, as I grow older, the idea of working for an employer, of working 8 hours a day, in a office, of having a fixed salary regardless of what I do… becomes more and more abhorrent to me.
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I really wish I had considered other paths before setting off to college and earning myself a sizeable amount of debt. Now, that debt inhibits the decisions I can make. But I guess an 18 year old from a blue-collar family can’t be expected to see any other path besides college and making more money than her parents as an improvement.
It’s really a good point you make here.
I do have the urge to mention one thing about working for an employer.
I notice that a lot of people who never have worked for anybody else in thier lives seem… not very smart.
Or lacking social skills.
I think that everybody should work a regular minimum wage job at least for a few months when they are younger.
I’m sure the experience is good for anybody, understanding what it is to live like that.
Kren, you sound like Calvin (from Calvin & Hobbes)’s father: “suffering builds character”.
I agree, though: experiences are a good thing, and you won’t be aware of how great it is to be self-employed if you haven’t experience the other side.
I have to disagree, though, with the “not very smart or lacking social skills”. Look at this guy. He only had a job for a couple of months in his entire life, lives just from his blog (and earns about 8 times as much as I do with my current job), and loves to speak in public.
Coincidentally, he has something interesting to say about this: