So, what happens when you take a break from it now and then? At least we are still free to do so whenever we want. We benefit from new ways of looking at things. Here are some of my own.
The other day, I saw a TikTok video where a guy was disgusted at a dirty job where this man had to use a machine to remove the hooves from slaughtered cows' feet. I agreed with the guy's sentiment until I realized he is probably trying to do TikTok for a living (haha). Then, I had a realization. As long as that man is able to perform that and other similar tasks, and as long as people eat beef, he will have a job, he will get his pay, and the better he gets the more his boss will want to keep him so a raise may come too. It is simple, clear and straightforward. Meanwhile, the so called clean job people have to go to school for something they likely will not do for work, go in debt, get low payed entry level work, keep studying to upgrade skills in their precious free time, and always be afraid of what they will do in the future if x y or z happens. A job with no security that you constantly have to study for is not the measure of whether that dirty job from the video is good or not! If you do not believe me, ask Mike Rowe?
In my private life, I have friends who are girls (even though we all say girls cannot really be friends but that is neither here nor there haha). Many of them are jumping on the bandwagon that the sole redeeming quality of a guy they would want to date is his income. Money is important, fair truism. However, when I ask them why they want him to have so much money, they respond they want it so that the two of them could travel, dine out, pay for house cleaning, do a mani pedi on a regular basis etc. I was nodding to this for a while but then I was like hey wait a minute. I would ask them if they know that wealth is built by saving, not spending (per se). Typically the answer revolves around well, if he is a doctor or an engineer or runs a big business, he is already rich. At that point, I take a step back and face pam hard (the latter I do in private so as to not offend my female friends). I remember something that Chris Rock said in one of his stand up routines. If Bill Gates woke up tomorrow with Oprah Winfrey's money, he would jump out of a window. Yes, dearest readers- there is wealth and then there is wealth. What I keep hearing from people with real wealth is that they always stress about it because wealth never maintains status quo- it must either grow or shrink if it is created in a free, lawful and competitive market. As percentage of their wealth, wealthy people spend way less of their income than the rest of us precisely because they know this (unless you go the route of the Vanderbilt family). With constant downward pressure on your wealth that you need to push against, excessive spending is a completely unwelcome and potentially ruinous burden. I have therefore come to believe that girls who do not understand this should not end up with guys who understand this but can be convinced otherwise because the resulting couple could easily become financially ruined. Even if they do not become financially ruined, they will not create generational wealth. Maybe they do not care about that? Ah, and there it is dearest readers- people with potential to create generational wealth and new dynasties, but they do not care to do so. Then, if they have children, the children will complain about the two percent instead of asking their parents why they did not try to get them there if they had a great opportunity to do so.
My final realization over the last few months is that we seem to be going back to 10-12 hour work days. No, not in the office- that is the day job. I like the hustle culture, I respect the side gig culture. I think the government likes it too because it makes the unemployment numbers look better than they really are. However, this also means that work has taken over quite a bit of people's lives same as during the industrial revolution when people moved from farms where work was hard but seasonal to cities where factory work was hard, was not seasonal but was instead all the time, and it took many hours out of people's days. I have experienced that in my own life as well. All I can say is all of us better find a non-destructive way to love life in spite of this.
Now, I realize these things have been going on for a while and they have crossed my mind repeatedly. However, it is only in the last few months that they really took more real estate in my head, which is like an airbnb for ideas, epiphanies and paradigm shifts haha. Will these realizations help, and were they worth the brain power and mental real estate? I think so, as I feel a bit better by having them.