Tag: Work

A job I would like to do

Today I am asked what’s a job I would like to do for just one day?

I got my first job as a teenager, and I’ve pretty much been employed ever since, except for a few years when I was going to college full time under a grant. I still remember the first week at my first job. I hated everything about it. My feet were killing me from being on them all day. I remember going home and asking my mom, is this all there is to life? Just getting up every day and going into a job to earn a paycheck? She said, I guess so. That’s what everyone does. I said to myself that very first week, this place isn’t for me. I’m getting out of here as soon as I possibly can. Years later, I was still there doing the 8 to 5 thing, and barely paying the bills on my meager paycheck. Luckily, I didn’t have too many bills back then and there was family around, or I would have starved to death.

That’s my experience with jobs, so I’m leaning toward there being no job I would like to do for a day. What I would like to do is have no job and still get by, but unfortunately, you have to pay someone to stay alive in this world, which requires a steady source of income. Also, if there was a job I liked doing, I’d probably want to do it everyday, not just for one day. All this considered, there used to be a kind of job I sort of liked.

A few years ago, when I was earning my MBA, I started a corporation for fun, just to figure out how it all worked. I had a plan to launch a hosting business using it. The real fun part though, at least for me, was studying how to set up and run a corporation. It dramatically improved my knowledge of how businesses operated. Unfortunately, the business didn’t take off, so I’ve been filing annual tax paperwork on a company that I will eventually shutdown.

The real objective of this whole endeavor, and maybe even why I pursued an MBA, is because I wanted a particular type of job. I wanted to be a business owner. When you own a business, at first it’s a lot of hard work, but eventually, if it works as planned, you find yourself the CEO of a lucrative company. At that point, your income mostly comes from leadership and exercising your stock options.

Being a CEO seemed like a dream job to me back then, but it never panned out. The thing I learned is you really have to have an incredible product or service to sell, preferably a unique one, so that you can have the first mover advantage. Otherwise, you are going to find yourself in a flooded and highly competitive market.

During this discovery process, I realized the real reason I liked the CEO job, and decided there were other similar jobs. I liked the CEO job because it had the potential of allowing you to exit the rat race. Basically, it is a property ownership job. You invest time and money into a business, it eventually pays it’s own bills, and you start receiving an income from your investment.

Fortunately, there are other jobs based on the property ownership idea, and pretty much all of them are attractive to me. This is another reason why being an author calls to me so strongly. A book is basically a type of property. You own the copyright to it, and every time someone buys a copy, you get some of that purchase in royalties. It’s basically like a kind of mini business. Unfortunately, the book has to sell to a lot of people, and keep selling for years to come. Of course, you can always churn out new books with all the free time you have living off the royalties, but the books really have to be a hit to keep going.

The short answer is, the job I want to do most is property ownership. It is the only true way of escaping the dreaded rat race, so you can actually experience life and start doing your own thing.

What job would you like to do most? What was your first job like? Have you ever started a business? Do you desire to be an author? What other property based incomes can you think of? Do you have experience creating passive income streams? Do you have any advice on how to escape the rat race? What’s the key to living the good life? Let me know in the comments, and don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe!

The root of all evil

When I was growing up, I used to hear the old saying “money is the root of all evil” almost as often as “money doesn’t grow on trees.” My family was far from rich and had working class roots, and I also lived in a small rural town, which may have caused everyone to blame money for much of their woes, and they were probably not too far off base. I still never quite bought the idea of money being the source of evil, and technically, some money does come from trees, or at least plants.

It might also have been because my family was deeply religious, and the first saying is scriptural. The full translation can be found in 1 Timothy 6:10 and it reads “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” This seems true, but I think it’s talking more about people losing their faith because of greed.

I occasionally pondered this saying when I was young. Most of the money I saw was printed on paper, but some was in the form of coins. In ancient times, it was mostly coinage and often made of precious metals like gold. Of course, paper doesn’t seem too evil to me, and gold is just a shiny metal as far as I’m concerned. Both of these have uses on their own, but what sort of alchemy is required to transform them into something evil?

On its own, the paper money in your pocket isn’t worth very much, at least not intrinsically. It only has value because we believe it has value. We believe it has value, and we believe other people think it has value. It is roughly the same agreed upon value for all of us. This makes it into a medium of value exchange, something we refer to as currency. As long as it maintains its perceived value, we can continue to trust it as currency. Of course, no currency is perfect, and various factors can affect the value, like inflation for instance.

That’s all good for our understanding, but we haven’t quite figured out why currency would ever be associated with evil. What we have determined is that it is something that people value. They value it because they can exchange it for what they want. For instance, if I want someone to mow my lawn, I understand that I can just whip out some money and someone else will do it for me. They will exchange their time and energy for the paper in my wallet.

Basically, money is a storage unit for time and energy, and every human being only has a certain amount of this. You will never get back the time it takes to mow your lawn, but if you paid someone else to do it, then you gain back that time at their loss. Basically, this money thing sort of allows you to consume another person’s energy and lifetime, freeing you up to spend your own time on something you really want to do.

It’s beginning to not sound so good anymore, especially if you are the one running around giving up your lifetime for everyone else, just to collect a bunch of paper that we already established has no intrinsic value. You can use that money to buy your own services of course, but some people never seem to come out ahead. It reminds me of another old saying, “the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.”

From here, we turn our attention to the affluent. The ones who seem to have plenty of money, so much so that they can mostly do whatever they want with their lifetime and energy. I’ve never been in their shoes, but I suspect it might be kind of addictive. They might do just about anything to gain and maintain this power.

I think this is the point where evil might begin to enter the picture. Having immense wealth may cause a person to be consumed by their own pride. They may begin to see themselves as superior to those with less money and power. This can lead to severe class differences socially, and eventually create division and envy.

I think we have succeeded in establishing that money is a complex system for exchanging time and energy, which can allow for bad things to happen, especially when combined with human vice. The problem is, I don’t think we have determined that money is the “root” cause of anything. To me, it seems more like a byproduct of certain conditions that already existed long before currency was invented.

Humans can’t do anything without the use of energy. Everything in this universe is driven by energy. Unfortunately, energy doesn’t automatically generate itself. You have to replace all the energy you use up. The bigger the task, the more energy you have to consume. For instance, heavy machinery consumes massive amounts of energy in the form of fuel or electricity, and all that energy costs money.

We know all this is true, because we know there are special laws in place in the physical universe that cause this to be the case. To do something useful, you need to consume energy, and that energy doesn’t just appear out of thin air. If it did, you could just blink your eyes and have a house and car in front of you. That only happens in your dreams and imagination though, never in the material world. Everything in this world requires work.

This is ultimately why money is necessary. The material world requires time and energy to do anything, and money is an exchange medium for time and energy. The point here is money can’t be the root, because it isn’t the foundation. It only exists because we have a need to use energy to manipulate the material world for our survival and happiness.

Basically, the law of conservation of matter and energy is actually the root cause, not money. Evil is woven into the material world at the lowest level through the laws of physics. We didn’t create evil by inventing money; we were born into it. It’s all around us. It’s what holds this universe together.

The hope I have with this article is so that we can forgive ourselves. Money is just a tool we invented because the circumstances existing in this universe eventually led to it. It’s a perfectly logical way to deal with the matter and energy problems that exist in the imperfect physical universe. Similarly, rich people are not the source of all the problems either. They just happen to better at making use of their resources, or perhaps they had a bit more luck than the rest of us.

Did you have humble beginnings? Have you ever studied currency? Do you sometimes question old sayings? What do you blame for all the world’s troubles? What would the universe be like with different physical laws? What is the secret to becoming wealthy? Do you think the rich abuse their power? Let me know in the comments, and don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe!

Playing favorites

Today I am asked what’s something most people don’t understand? There are actually quite a few things that people don’t understand, but I have one in mind that I keep encountering. People are not aware that everything in our world is greatly influenced by individual biases and favoritism.

I used to be very concerned about how well I did. I wanted to please friends, colleagues, employers, etc. In general, I felt like I did a pretty decent job, until I ran into someone who had a bias. What I mean is someone who is strongly influenced by their likes and dislikes. They tend to have certain people they like, and other people they don’t like, and never will like. Unfortunately, their likes and dislikes lead them toward irrational decision making, which can be very costly to an organization. In my own experience, I have also found that it is next to impossible to change their biases.

For instance, if you are not the type of person they like, you are probably going to be passed over for all the big promotions, regardless of your performance. They are going to give it to their special people (i.e. the people they like). They are also going to try and run you off by creating a toxic work environment for you. They may do other obnoxious things, like accentuating tasks that their favorite people are skilled in, while belittling other tasks, regardless of the true value of those tasks. This can cause a company to focus on low value objectives.

The behavior of playing favorites is highly related to something called cronyism. Cronyism is the managerial and political practice of giving jobs to friends rather than people with the necessary skills and qualifications. Sometimes people resort to cronyism because they are afraid to hire people who might one day take their job. They figure if they hire unqualified friends, those friends will be loyal and too incompetent to overtake them. In general, this is the opposite of how you should hire people.

I once heard it phrased like this:

First rate managers hire first rate people.
Second rate managers hire third rate people.

On the flip side, it’s very possible that someone can be on the other end of this and not realize it. I’ve seen people receive special treatment from their boss without even realizing it was due to favoritism. They sincerely think they were the best person for the job and their work is top notch. No one tells them any different because they don’t want to get on the boss’s bad side. If someone does tell them, it is likely they will just chalk it up to envy. This is a delusion caused by their pride.

The point I am trying to make here is that you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. It might not be your fault at all. Look around for the signs. You might be dealing with a crony leader who plays favorites.

Have you ever worked for someone who played favorites? Have you seen unfair promotions? Have you ever worked in a toxic workplace? How does this influence office politics? Let me know your experience, and don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe!

Wish I could do more

Today’s prompt is what do I wish I could do more of every day? I think about this a lot. It sometimes feels like I am using all my time and energy up on things that just pay the bills. I suspect that’s true for most people, but I find it sad. Maybe it’s selfish, but I feel like it’s my life, and most of my time should be spent on self improvement and life enjoyment. When I do get a few days off, which is usually only during Spring Break, I thoroughly love it, and wish it would never end. Below are a few things I would like to do every day.

  1. Contemplation. I like to think about things. Sometimes I talk about those things to God in prayer. It helps me to make sense of life. I feel like this is the only way to give life any meaning. I guess this is what Socrates meant when he said “the unexamined life is not worth living.”
  2. Conversation. I like to talk to likeminded friends and sometimes even strangers. This helps me to understand everyone better. A good conversation can be very satisfying and sometimes even enlightening.
  3. Observation. I like to see and experience new things. This can include a variety of things, such as travel, art, music, food, nature, etc. Experiencing beauty makes me happy. It would also include people watching, which is always entertaining.
  4. Stories. The idea of having so much free time that I could just sit and read a book for as long as I wanted sounds pretty good to me. This would also include audiobooks, and movies. I especially like stories that make you consider something new.
  5. Writing. I like writing, which includes writing stories of my own or blogging. Good writing seems to be one of the longest lasting mediums for human creativity. Writing has survived for thousands of years and will continue to serve countless generations.
  6. Learning. I like to learn new things. Not all of the books I read are stories, many are non-fiction. I’ve read plenty of books over self-help, psychology, health, management, religion, finance, etc.
  7. Affection. Not going to lie, I would love to have more time for affection and romance. It’s hard to find the right person of course. There is nothing quite like the feeling of being in love, and having the time to spend with this special person.

What would you like to do more of every day? Do you feel like you don’t have enough time for yourself? Is there something you would add to the list? Let me know in the comments, and don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe!

I accept failure.

Today’s question is how has a failure, or apparent failure, set me up for later success. I felt like I should answer this prompt because I used to have a saying that I made up about it. I used to say that nothing can ensure your success better than a well placed failure.

Nothing can ensure your success better than a well placed failure.

There was a time when I tried to do all things for all people. I was pretty good at it actually, and early on it gave me the reputation of being very reliable. Unfortunately, the more I got done the more they threw at me. I eventually found myself drowning in work and unable to keep up. I began to experience incredible stress from this and was facing burnout. I started to realize that I would not be able to keep it up forever without suffering severe health problems.

This was the point in time when I decided that something had to change. It happened kind of naturally. I failed to accomplish a task, and I thought it would be the end of the world, but for some reason it went unnoticed. It turned out that it wasn’t really that important after all. After this happened, I decided to only focus my attention on the things that seemed mission critical, and let the rest fall to the floor. This was not an easy strategy to execute because I didn’t want to disappoint anyone, but it was definitely better than being hospitalized.

Surprisingly, things didn’t fall apart the way I expected. It became apparent that many of the tasks coming my way were more along the lines of a nice to have, but they could live without. I think in some cases they didn’t even feel confident in suggesting them. They were just throwing out ideas, which is easy to do, and seeing if any took wings. I suspect they also correctly assumed that I was simply swamped and couldn’t get to it.

I also found that the tasks that were really important tended to stick around and eventually rise to the top. Since they were truly important, it was hard to forget about them. The people requesting them would periodically nag me about them or try to escalate somehow. Eventually, I became much better at identifying which items were critical and which were more like suggestions. I began to realize that many requests are actually a waste of time to implement. I also got much better at telling them no.

This shift in how I worked was subtle, but it helped free me up enough to start working on things that eventually allowed me to rise above the minutia. I don’t think I would have been able to finish my degrees and graduate with honors if I had been up all night working on things that didn’t really matter that much. Basically, I got to where I am by realizing that failure is necessary for ultimate success.

Do you think failure is a component of success? Do you feel overworked? Have you ever faced burnout? Did you eventually come to a similar conclusion? Do you think some requests are not worth completing? Do you hate disappointing people? Are you good at telling people no? Let me know in the comments, and don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe!

Job enjoyment.

Today I am asked if I enjoy my job. The answer is a somewhat reluctant yes. I just can’t bring myself to say I love something that makes me get up so early. Sorry, I’m just never going to be a morning person. I would much rather go to work sometime in the afternoon. I could probably deal with it better if it was completely remote. As it stands, I have to get up early every day, get ready, then drive into an office a few blocks away.

My jobs have definitely become increasingly better over the years. The first one being positively horrible because I had to stand in one place all day. That really hurt my ankles. It had other health dangers as well. The people there were pretty nice to me though, and I’ve learned that’s a really important part of any job. My jobs have also increased dramatically in pay and benefits, which is also very important. My current occupation is in management. I had to overcome a lot of obstacles to get here though, especially my shyness. At this point in my career, I honestly wouldn’t want any job that wasn’t in management.

There is one other thing I don’t particularly like about jobs. I have found that some people in the workplace are competitive to a fault. I feel like this is a product of sports being overly accentuated throughout all their school years. They assume that everything in life is a game, and the goal is to annihilate their enemies. When these people get to a workplace, instead of just doing their job, they think they are in competition with everyone, even their own teammates. I’m honestly one of those people who hope we all win, but more importantly, I’m smart enough to recognize that most jobs are just a labor contract. Do your job at work and play games when you are off work. Either way, I’m not going to compete with you.

Are you a morning person? Do you have to commute? Do you telecommute? What do you love or hate most about your job? Have you ever worked with highly competitive people? What are the biggest problems in the workplace? What do all good jobs have in common? What about bad jobs? Let me know in the comments, and don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe!

My favorite people.

The question of the day is who are your current most favorite people? I would say my favorite people are close friends and family members. I actively try to meet new people as well, so the list should continue to grow. I have also written about several of these people on this blog, including my best friend, my favorite bartender, and my best friend from work. I have also written about my dad and grandmother, who were two of my favorite people, but unfortunately, they are not with me anymore. The members of my department at work are also among my favorites. Teamwork makes the dreamwork.

Who are your favorite people? What makes them your favorite? Let me know in the comments, and don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe!

I’m reading books.

The prompt for today is about what book I’m reading, which seems well timed. I started gathering reader suggestions a little while ago, and I’m working my way through that list right now. Feel free to add to it by suggesting books in the comments of that post. Maybe you would also like to read along with me if you see one that interests you.

The main book I’m working on at the moment is Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. I’m not very far into it yet. The book is interesting, but it brought back a few unpleasant childhood memories. I witnessed the same hyper competitiveness and bullying that is being depicted in the book back in school. I wasn’t overly competitive growing up, so I avoided most of that myself, but I definitely saw it around me. I wrote something about it in a previous post about the first fight I ever witnessed.

Fighting and bullying is really the ugly side of humanity. Most people grow out of the violence when they reach an age where they can get in trouble with the law for assault and battery, but some people don’t learn their lesson until they experience jail time. Unfortunately, those who manage to quell their need to hit others, often end up channeling their hatred into other negative pursuits, like office politics instance.

Unfortunately, I have had to deal with office politics half my adult life, and quite frankly, it disgusts me. It seems like there’s always at least one person who spends most of their time criticizing and bringing people down because of extreme envy. To be honest, I’d just like to do my job and go home. I’m not there to beat anyone. I’m honestly one of those people who hope we all win. Work should be about completing the tasks you are assigned, not a childish game for egomaniacs. That’s my opinion anyway.

From what I’ve read so far, Ender’s Game sort of reminds me of another book I read called Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Both books describe a group of boys in a highly competitive environment. I’m not sure how Ender’s Game will turn out, but hopefully not like Lord of the Flies. Things got really out of hand in that book. I would say it’s a pretty good book if you want to know how a group of unsupervised boys would turn out on a deserted island. It’s a classic tale, and probably pretty accurate.

Lord of the Flies

At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate. This far from civilization they can do anything they want. Anything. But as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far removed from reality as the hope of being rescued.

What books are you currently reading? Have you read Ender’s Game or Lord of the Flies? What’s your favorite book? Did you witness bullying in your school? How do you cope with office politics? Have you ever been around someone who constantly spues negativity? Do you know someone who bad mouths everyone who gets in their way? Let’s start a conversation, and don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe!

The need for time.

The subject of this post is whether I need time. When someone asks me a question, I first think of the most obvious answer, but then my mind does this funny thing where it deeply evaluates the question to determine if I am not just repeating the accepted answer. I often find ways to make the total opposite of the accepted answer make sense. I think this is how wisdom begins to develop, not by giving the answer, but by creating an even deeper question.

With that in mind, I would say that the most obvious answer is yes. Everyone wants more time, right? Isn’t time the most precious commodity? Isn’t time the only thing you can’t get back when it’s spent? Maybe those things are true, but do I really need more of it? To me, the real question to consider is, do I have enough of it already?

In reality, the answer is actually no. I don’t need more time. I often struggle to make it through a whole day, especially if that day is Monday. Honestly, a day is painfully long most days of the week. I sometime wish a day was reduced to just one hour, not the sixteen hours I’m expected to be awake to endure.

There are several factors that might influence us into thinking that we need more time. It might be because we are focusing on our own mortality and the shortness of our lives. We might also come to think that if we had just a few more hours to work each day we could finally make enough money to break out of the rat race. That probably won’t work though, because the economy will likely just adjust itself to the new influx of income. By far, I think the best reason to desire more time is the thought that if we had a few more hours a day we could spend it on personal things or with our family. Unfortunately, I fear something else would come out of the woodwork and eat up all the time we gained.

If rather than adding four hours to the day, I could, let’s say, make the same living I make now while working four hours less than I currently have to work, wouldn’t that really solve the whole problem? Now it would appear that I don’t actually need more time at all. What I actually need are more boundaries on how my time is consumed.

This is really one of the premises behind a book I read a few years ago called The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. I think it became very popular because there’s quite a few people who would like to take their life back from their corporate overlords.

The 4-Hour Workweek

Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan–there is no need to wait and every reason not to, especially in unpredictable economic times. Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, or earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, The 4-Hour Workweek is the blueprint.

This step-by-step guide to luxury lifestyle design teaches:

  • How Tim went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month and 4 hours per week
  • How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want
  • How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs
  • How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist
  • How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent “mini-retirements”

In the end, I don’t think I need more time. Time is important, but it can all be taken away if you have no time boundaries. Freedom is way more important. With absolute freedom, you would have an abundance of time. Imagine a life where those sixteen waking hours in a day belonged to you exclusively to do whatever you wanted with them. You would probably have so much time you wouldn’t know what to do with all of it. On the other hand, having an infinite amount of time with absolutely no freedom would be an utter nightmare. It would literally be eternal slavery.

Do you have enough time? Are you effective at time management? Do you set effective boundaries to ensure a work life balance? Would you enjoy absolute freedom? Let us know in the comments, and don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe!