“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” was a quote from writer and cartoonist Allen Saunders in a 1957 issue of Reader’s Digest magazine. (I love a good quote! If I had told you that Plato had first said this in 380 BCE it wouldn’t have probably seemed out of place.)
One plan most people find themselves making is how to afford to live, much less achieve any larger life goals. This is typically where “a life” takes the detour into finding “a job”.
I would argue that one of the best ways to define “a job” is something you’d rather not be doing with your time, but enables you to pursue your interests once complete.
Most often “a job” is something in which we give our time in exchange for money. However, many people are parents and they might consider that to be a hard job that pays nothing. There are other rewards involved of course and nothing could be more synonymous with “a life” than creating a new one. But not many things will fracture your ego like having a baby that will die if you don’t take care of it.
The lucky few who are paid to do something they enjoy get labeled “professional”. These are the dreams of every aspiring artist, musician, athlete, writer, etc. Most of the jobs related to these fields involve producing work to the standards and specifications of a commission. Even Mozart, arguably the greatest musical composer ever, was under royal commission. Being considered a genius, he was given a long leash but he was still just an employee doing a job. So, many “artistic” types find themselves commodifying their work to earn a living. They sell out to the lowest common denominator or the highest bidder.
Another label applied to some jobs is “career”. These are most often associated with advanced degrees in education such as law, medicine and science. The jobs associated with these education paths are usually more financially rewarding and are typically regarded as being more closely aligned with an individual’s life goals. If you can mentally and financially follow these paths then more power to you.
But my point is that nobody wants a job.
We want to feel useful, engaged, challenged, needed and able to support ourselves and our loved ones.
We need jobs, based on our current society, to enable that. The enlightenment and meaning that we crave in our lives is not met by our jobs.
There is much to explore in the fields of economic opportunity and social structures. As an advocate for the disempowered I see failure and opportunity in our current situation.
There are individuals embedded in our economy who receive wealth regardless of their contribution and there are those who would cross our national boundary in order to benefit from our dominance.
These are the extremes that we will endeavor to reveal the gradients to in the future.