Madonna's loving brother, Christopher Ciccone, barfs a new book on the market this upcoming week: "Life with My Sister Madonna." He reveals the incredible secret that his sister is a narcissist and the most important person in Madonna's life is ... oh-my-Gawd, nobody knew: Madonna!
Mr. Ciccone, the brotherly leech, has plenty of reasons to thank his sister for being who she is and how she is, because he wouldn't have written the book, neither would this tome sell so well--even before its publication date--without her. Madonna may not be perfect sister material, but I am quite happy not to have Christopher C. as my brother. Would you like to have your siblings publishing your family secrets? I thought so.
However, this story reminds me of a success related issue most people fail to consider when they dream and aim for wealth and fame. We want to "get" things and we are not aware that we must first become the one who can have that stuff:
When you were a child, I'm sure you heard this phrase ad nauseam in one form or another: "no, you can't have that yet. Once you are a little older (more responsible, 18, 21, etc.) we shall see." Our parents told us repeatedly we had to BE something FIRST before we were eligible to get the things we were after. They were not that wrong!
People, envious of Madonna's wealth and lifestyle, must know that they can't have all those goodies without BEING Madonna, and most people don't want to be her or like her. Not even her own brother wants to be like her. It's the same with success in other areas. A friend of mine, who is rather successful with MLM and who hates my rants against network marketing, refuses to see that in order to have a thriving network marketing business you need to BE that kind of person. No condescending judgment here: you must enjoy networking or you will fail (like over 90% of those who try).
Either you are a person who loves the MLM world already--the network marketing religion--or you must badly want to BECOME the type of person who feels home in that environment if you care to succeed. It is nonsense, a waste of time, and causing unnecessary pain trying to convince people that "the system", as the great equalizer and enabler, will turn everybody into a success story.
One of the greatest myths is that "money corrupts people." No, not even the largest amount of money can make you do what you absolutely don't want to do. It's kinda like the old hypnosis question, "will you jump off a building if the hypnotist asks you to?" You'd wake up out of the cash trance if someone asked you to do things that are against your nature.
Money operates like a looking glass and it shows you (and others) what you are made of. Huge piles of money make character traits publicly visible. Money brings out the good and the bad in you, but money is NOT responsible for you being the person you happen to be. If someone is corrupt, of course a nice chunk of money will help everyone else to see it. Most of us are so corrupt that we can be bought into doing something we don't want to do--lifelong--with puny wages, a couple of benefits, and worthless seniority babble at the water cooler. Similarly, piles of dough also show a compassionate and generous person clearer.
Again, it's not money first and then its owner changes mind, morals, and convictions: it happens the other way around. Who was first, the chick or the egg? When elderly people fall and break a hip, we know that's not how it happened: the hip broke first and then the person fell. Yet the falling is what we see as the obvious, first.
Usually we see first that someone must have oodles of money. We are not aware what led to that pile of dough. Blinded by good looks and money, people don't care about the details of development an individual had to endure to become who she is today. People judge other people as superficially as they possibly can.
And so it happens that many of us crave to punish the rich (a characterization based on nothing but a wild and ignorant guess), with an increase of capital gains tax, for instance. Since historical data show that a LOWER capital gains tax leads to HIGHER tax revenue, the call for raising that particular tax can only have the aim to punish people. Otherwise it makes no sense whatsoever.
We want to get rich (whatever we think that may be), but at the same time we want to hurt those who are "rich" already. Insane! Then, we think the amount of money one has alone--or his assets--are what got him where he is. Money is power, isn't it? "Money makes the world go 'round?" Claptrap. How much power means a bag with $100,000 under a little old lady's mattress?
In most cases it is the other way around. People have ideas, they act, and they move things. That creates money, and of course more money helps increasing the spreading of ideas, activities, etc. around the globe. But the people were first, NOT their money. An individual with tons of money was FIRST that individual person, with her particular ideas and her personal choices of how she wanted to live her life. Then she had a couple of lucky breaks or she didn't.
It is utterly dumb to believe, "I want money and then I can be who I want to be and do what I want to do." Childish, and still after being with his sister Madonna for almost half a century, Mr. Ciccone's foggy brain has not allowed him to see what's what. As a good, warm-hearted and caring sister, Madonna would have never been Madonna, and not worth writing a single paragraph about in the family scrapbook.
Be happy not to be Madonna! Be glad you are not David Beckham. Be grateful you don't have to be Rush Limbaugh. But stop this slimy envy, the vile bitterness of begrudging other people's money, or just the idiocy of comparison with individuals you don't care to be.
Now, I don't accuse you of doing such stupid things! But you and me, we participate almost daily in conversations where some airhead brings up that very issue. Set the records straight. To defend Mr. Limbaugh and Madonna? Good gawd, NO! To build an environment where YOU can live freely and unfold, privately and professionally, as you damn well please.
Freedom begins with you and it ends with the Ciccones. Everything you do is likely to be criticized by somebody some day, and possibly by your own children in a therapy session twenty years from now.
So what? Do what you want to do, today. Doing that and being you--the one and only original you--may earn you money down the road or not, lots of money or not so much. If you care for your happiness it's an easy choice to make.
Egbert
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
mules and horses
Zig Ziglar once spoke about diet, and he said no sane person would feed her one million dollar race horse a single bite of the wrong food. If it's not conducive to the horse's purpose, it's not going to make it into the horse's stomach.
People, however, don't hesitate to eat all kinds of crap with full knowledge and zero regard for the consequences.
The average person thinks less of himself than we think of race horses. Our self-esteem matches more the value of an old and tired mule. We are neither sane, nor do we believe we're worth much. Hence we go out and buy another diet book. As if we didn't know what's good for us. And some of us have gone too far in our madness, so that we ended up "on the other side," as exercise and diet Nazis.
I don't care about the stuff you stuff yourself with! Eat, get fat, live large--that's none of my business.
But I like Zig's race horse analogy and bloody horse thief that I am, it's worth stealing it for my dark and evil purposes. Would you put your million dollar race horse before a dung cart? Of course not. And no breeder will purchase sperm of that particular horse because it's so damn cute. The horse has a potential that is difficult to measure in monetary terms.
How about your potential? Do you pamper yourself and care for your well-being as you would if you were a horse?
If your self-worth is not above the value of a million dollar horse, I do feel sorry for you. And we squeeze ourselves into the harness of a job, to make "some" money that will cover the wireless bill. We'd prefer a job that pays better, with better hours, and superior benefits. Potential? Potential my arse.
Jobs are supposedly the answer to poverty? Jobs ARE our poverty! Temporarily a job may help you to get through a rough patch in life, but a life in jobs? I ask you one more time: would you let your thoroughbred horse pull a wagon, so that you can make a quick buck helping someone move furniture?
Yes, jobs make some money but more so, they destroy people's potential. Jobs end the development of your individuality. Retirement is not the end of life. That has happened much earlier: getting a job is what's ending your life. Freedom to discover one's true potential and to live it expansively often finds its abrupt end in a job. People get finished on their jobs.
Jobs are the expression of helplessness in our society to treasure individuals. 87% of employees hate their jobs according to Forbes Magazine. Oh my God, that must mean all 87% do what they're meant to do with their lives! As long as they hate what they're doing, they are on the right track. Let's tell the unions to force politicians to create more jobs we can hate.
Are we that nuts? How many marbles do we have left to lose?
Asking for more jobs means we are intellectually and creatively bankrupt. We are at our wit's end. We don't know better than to use the finest potential we have for the most foolish purposes. As long as they are kept busy and don't have too much time to think. Hitler thought that also: let them build Autobahns. Keeps the unemployment rate low.
There is a certain idiocy operating behind the intent to create jobs no matter what. Devious and devilish is the effort to just provide people with sufficient jobs to keep them occupied.
What a waste of human beings! We mourn our dead. I mourn the murder of individuals on their jobs. People fill out a job application willing to waive the better part of their lives. Barbeque on the weekend, a boat, a house, the kids, a pooch. That's it? People show strangers proudly the pictures of their "beautiful" brats--mostly ugly, insecure teenagers--as if finding a cheating spouse and feeding your accidental brood were amazingly unique accomplishments.
What on Earth is YOUR true potential? Every rabbit can make babies. What can you do? And how will you get it out of yourself for everyone to see and to admire?
There is beauty in you, and your job is to pry it out of its closet.
Egbert Sukop
P.S.: The final version of my book 'How to Better Hate Your Job' is not in print yet. That should not stop you from picking up an "Advanced Reader's Copy" through my website (http://www.moneybymistake.com/). Paperback copy for $11 or it'll cost you $1 if you want to download the eBook edition. Yep, a single puny buck for the entire book! Tell me what you think of it: your "blurb," positive or scathingly negative, will be printed in the First Edition. Condition: your blurb must be offbeat. Boredom verboten!
People, however, don't hesitate to eat all kinds of crap with full knowledge and zero regard for the consequences.
The average person thinks less of himself than we think of race horses. Our self-esteem matches more the value of an old and tired mule. We are neither sane, nor do we believe we're worth much. Hence we go out and buy another diet book. As if we didn't know what's good for us. And some of us have gone too far in our madness, so that we ended up "on the other side," as exercise and diet Nazis.
I don't care about the stuff you stuff yourself with! Eat, get fat, live large--that's none of my business.
But I like Zig's race horse analogy and bloody horse thief that I am, it's worth stealing it for my dark and evil purposes. Would you put your million dollar race horse before a dung cart? Of course not. And no breeder will purchase sperm of that particular horse because it's so damn cute. The horse has a potential that is difficult to measure in monetary terms.
How about your potential? Do you pamper yourself and care for your well-being as you would if you were a horse?
If your self-worth is not above the value of a million dollar horse, I do feel sorry for you. And we squeeze ourselves into the harness of a job, to make "some" money that will cover the wireless bill. We'd prefer a job that pays better, with better hours, and superior benefits. Potential? Potential my arse.
Jobs are supposedly the answer to poverty? Jobs ARE our poverty! Temporarily a job may help you to get through a rough patch in life, but a life in jobs? I ask you one more time: would you let your thoroughbred horse pull a wagon, so that you can make a quick buck helping someone move furniture?
Yes, jobs make some money but more so, they destroy people's potential. Jobs end the development of your individuality. Retirement is not the end of life. That has happened much earlier: getting a job is what's ending your life. Freedom to discover one's true potential and to live it expansively often finds its abrupt end in a job. People get finished on their jobs.
Jobs are the expression of helplessness in our society to treasure individuals. 87% of employees hate their jobs according to Forbes Magazine. Oh my God, that must mean all 87% do what they're meant to do with their lives! As long as they hate what they're doing, they are on the right track. Let's tell the unions to force politicians to create more jobs we can hate.
Are we that nuts? How many marbles do we have left to lose?
Asking for more jobs means we are intellectually and creatively bankrupt. We are at our wit's end. We don't know better than to use the finest potential we have for the most foolish purposes. As long as they are kept busy and don't have too much time to think. Hitler thought that also: let them build Autobahns. Keeps the unemployment rate low.
There is a certain idiocy operating behind the intent to create jobs no matter what. Devious and devilish is the effort to just provide people with sufficient jobs to keep them occupied.
What a waste of human beings! We mourn our dead. I mourn the murder of individuals on their jobs. People fill out a job application willing to waive the better part of their lives. Barbeque on the weekend, a boat, a house, the kids, a pooch. That's it? People show strangers proudly the pictures of their "beautiful" brats--mostly ugly, insecure teenagers--as if finding a cheating spouse and feeding your accidental brood were amazingly unique accomplishments.
What on Earth is YOUR true potential? Every rabbit can make babies. What can you do? And how will you get it out of yourself for everyone to see and to admire?
There is beauty in you, and your job is to pry it out of its closet.
Egbert Sukop
P.S.: The final version of my book 'How to Better Hate Your Job' is not in print yet. That should not stop you from picking up an "Advanced Reader's Copy" through my website (http://www.moneybymistake.com/). Paperback copy for $11 or it'll cost you $1 if you want to download the eBook edition. Yep, a single puny buck for the entire book! Tell me what you think of it: your "blurb," positive or scathingly negative, will be printed in the First Edition. Condition: your blurb must be offbeat. Boredom verboten!
Sunday, July 6, 2008
independence: long shot
Search "employment" on Google, and you will find 309 million links.
"Unemployment" produces 35.4 million links.
"Self-employment" turns up a measly 4.8 million links.
Dare I say it seems to be more than 7 times as popular to be unemployed than to be self-employed? I can't do that, can I? Well, I just did, and you cannot deny that people prefer to be employed rather than working for themselves. According to an entire minute of my scientific research, I found 1.55% of our population is seriously interested in independence--workwise that is.
We don't care to be productive. The largest employer, the government, pays her people out of tax money. You tell me how many "products," manufactured by the government, are being sold successfully in a competitive market environment? How do you measure performance of a government employee, compared with someone who works at a conveyor belt and pops out a tangible product every twelve minutes or so? Hey, relax! I like having the police checking on bad guys. Parts of the government are indeed important. Government employees are quite alright, but the question got to be legitimate: what percentage of government employment is truly productive?
How about subsidized industries? From ethanol production to the ailing airline industry, or to call centers we hesitate to outsource: if tax dollars have to prop up jobs, they certainly lack productivity. Even good old Ted Turner gets paid handsomely--out of your and my pocket--to stop him from farming his land. I hope he at least is aware of how useless and unproductive he is.
As long as an employee gets a paycheck, she is not necessarily concerned whether she is part of something that generates real income or if she produces marketable services and products. If you are self-employed or an entrepreneur, you don't have such luxury. You have to come up with ideas someone somewhere is willing to give you money for. The government may bail out Bear Stearns' shiny behind, but they won't save your dry cleaning franchise from going belly up.
Independence is not attractive! School teachers won't prepare you for it. Unless your parents are entrepreneurs themselves, they will be scared when you tell them you're going into business for yourself. When John Drummond told his father-in-law he was planning to sell unicycles, he got the (understandable) response: "How many clowns do you know?" I believe John didn't know any clowns back then, and he still managed to take www.unicycle.com past a million dollars in annual sales, meanwhile.
Independence is scary and yet, America has been built on just that by notorious bunglers, inventors, and those who tried to do something without the slightest guarantee to succeed. Independence cannot be bought. You will never have enough assets to be independent, all of a sudden. Independence will always be fragile, uncertain, unprotected, threatened, lonely, unreasonable, and a fiercely individual commodity. You don't get independence as a group ticket. No one can bestow it upon you. And trust me on this one: if and when you take on the challenge to be independent, not one other person will be eager to get your kind of independence.
People will laugh about your silly form of independence, first. If that does not dishearten you, they will attack you. If they can't destroy your stupid independence with aggression, they will develop jealousy. Later on, they'll steal your ideas. They may want to copy your products at some point but they never want a part of the hardship you had to endure in the process. A new business needs care and protection like a newborn child, complete with frequent diaper changes and all.
Yet, that's the future: you being in business for yourself. Don't quit your job! Begin something parallel to your existing job (if you have one). People don't quit when they have a baby, either. Well, if they're smart, they don't. You still need to eat and having a roof over your head helps also. But sooner or later, within the next couple of decades, employment will shrink significantly and self-employment will grow. People hate their jobs for good reasons, and wage slavery will be abolished, step by step.
"With more than one million new businesses each year, America’s economy depends on small businesses for its vitality and growth. According to the 1997 report of the U.S. Census Bureau, the nation’s 17 million small, non-farm businesses constituted 99.7 per cent of all employers, employed 52 percent of private workforce and accounted for 51 percent of the nation’s sales. Small business-dominated industries provided 11.1 million new jobs between 1994 and 1998, virtually all of the new jobs created during that time period. Small businesses are most likely to generate jobs for young workers, older workers and women, provide 67 percent of first jobs and produce 55 percent of innovations.
"Thousands of people with disabilities have been successful as small business owners. The 1990 national census revealed that people with disabilities have a higher rate of self-employment and small business experience (12.2 percent) than people without disabilities (7.8 percent). The Disabled Businessman’s Association estimates that 40 percent of home-based businesses are operated by people with disabilities." (source: U.S. Dept. of Labor, http://www.dol.gov/odep/)
If self-employment required especially strong, well-to-do, and able people, there would be a lower rate of individuals with disabilities in business for themselves than of people who aren't suffering any disabilities. The average person still believes in her strengths as an income source. A growing number of those who had to learn to live with disabilities have discovered that you can exploit your weaknesses just as well as strengths, and possibly with greater success.
You don't need to learn the hard way through disabilities or pain: wherever you are currently in your career or financially, there are ways for you to gain independence, enjoyment, and additional income. Strength or obvious weakness, it is possible to exploit both for fun and profit.
That's what freedom is for.
Egbert
P.S.: Final version of my book 'How to Better Hate Your Job' is not in print yet, but you may pick up an "Advanced Reader's Copy" through my website (http://www.moneybymistake.com/). Paperback copy for $11 or it'll cost you $1 if you want to download the eBook edition. Yep, a single buck for the entire book!
"Unemployment" produces 35.4 million links.
"Self-employment" turns up a measly 4.8 million links.
Dare I say it seems to be more than 7 times as popular to be unemployed than to be self-employed? I can't do that, can I? Well, I just did, and you cannot deny that people prefer to be employed rather than working for themselves. According to an entire minute of my scientific research, I found 1.55% of our population is seriously interested in independence--workwise that is.
We don't care to be productive. The largest employer, the government, pays her people out of tax money. You tell me how many "products," manufactured by the government, are being sold successfully in a competitive market environment? How do you measure performance of a government employee, compared with someone who works at a conveyor belt and pops out a tangible product every twelve minutes or so? Hey, relax! I like having the police checking on bad guys. Parts of the government are indeed important. Government employees are quite alright, but the question got to be legitimate: what percentage of government employment is truly productive?
How about subsidized industries? From ethanol production to the ailing airline industry, or to call centers we hesitate to outsource: if tax dollars have to prop up jobs, they certainly lack productivity. Even good old Ted Turner gets paid handsomely--out of your and my pocket--to stop him from farming his land. I hope he at least is aware of how useless and unproductive he is.
As long as an employee gets a paycheck, she is not necessarily concerned whether she is part of something that generates real income or if she produces marketable services and products. If you are self-employed or an entrepreneur, you don't have such luxury. You have to come up with ideas someone somewhere is willing to give you money for. The government may bail out Bear Stearns' shiny behind, but they won't save your dry cleaning franchise from going belly up.
Independence is not attractive! School teachers won't prepare you for it. Unless your parents are entrepreneurs themselves, they will be scared when you tell them you're going into business for yourself. When John Drummond told his father-in-law he was planning to sell unicycles, he got the (understandable) response: "How many clowns do you know?" I believe John didn't know any clowns back then, and he still managed to take www.unicycle.com past a million dollars in annual sales, meanwhile.
Independence is scary and yet, America has been built on just that by notorious bunglers, inventors, and those who tried to do something without the slightest guarantee to succeed. Independence cannot be bought. You will never have enough assets to be independent, all of a sudden. Independence will always be fragile, uncertain, unprotected, threatened, lonely, unreasonable, and a fiercely individual commodity. You don't get independence as a group ticket. No one can bestow it upon you. And trust me on this one: if and when you take on the challenge to be independent, not one other person will be eager to get your kind of independence.
People will laugh about your silly form of independence, first. If that does not dishearten you, they will attack you. If they can't destroy your stupid independence with aggression, they will develop jealousy. Later on, they'll steal your ideas. They may want to copy your products at some point but they never want a part of the hardship you had to endure in the process. A new business needs care and protection like a newborn child, complete with frequent diaper changes and all.
Yet, that's the future: you being in business for yourself. Don't quit your job! Begin something parallel to your existing job (if you have one). People don't quit when they have a baby, either. Well, if they're smart, they don't. You still need to eat and having a roof over your head helps also. But sooner or later, within the next couple of decades, employment will shrink significantly and self-employment will grow. People hate their jobs for good reasons, and wage slavery will be abolished, step by step.
"With more than one million new businesses each year, America’s economy depends on small businesses for its vitality and growth. According to the 1997 report of the U.S. Census Bureau, the nation’s 17 million small, non-farm businesses constituted 99.7 per cent of all employers, employed 52 percent of private workforce and accounted for 51 percent of the nation’s sales. Small business-dominated industries provided 11.1 million new jobs between 1994 and 1998, virtually all of the new jobs created during that time period. Small businesses are most likely to generate jobs for young workers, older workers and women, provide 67 percent of first jobs and produce 55 percent of innovations.
"Thousands of people with disabilities have been successful as small business owners. The 1990 national census revealed that people with disabilities have a higher rate of self-employment and small business experience (12.2 percent) than people without disabilities (7.8 percent). The Disabled Businessman’s Association estimates that 40 percent of home-based businesses are operated by people with disabilities." (source: U.S. Dept. of Labor, http://www.dol.gov/odep/)
If self-employment required especially strong, well-to-do, and able people, there would be a lower rate of individuals with disabilities in business for themselves than of people who aren't suffering any disabilities. The average person still believes in her strengths as an income source. A growing number of those who had to learn to live with disabilities have discovered that you can exploit your weaknesses just as well as strengths, and possibly with greater success.
You don't need to learn the hard way through disabilities or pain: wherever you are currently in your career or financially, there are ways for you to gain independence, enjoyment, and additional income. Strength or obvious weakness, it is possible to exploit both for fun and profit.
That's what freedom is for.
Egbert
P.S.: Final version of my book 'How to Better Hate Your Job' is not in print yet, but you may pick up an "Advanced Reader's Copy" through my website (http://www.moneybymistake.com/). Paperback copy for $11 or it'll cost you $1 if you want to download the eBook edition. Yep, a single buck for the entire book!
Friday, July 4, 2008
independence: short cut
Pursuit of happiness is your right, I know. I do appreciate to live in the only country on earth that acknowledges and protects the individual's right to freedom and happiness. It's huge and not to be taken for granted!
Yet, your right to be happy is not enough if you care to be happy. No one can make you happy: your country can't, your spouse or lover can't, your children can't. Sure, there are people around us who make and bake children for their--the parents'--happiness or as a device to "heal" their broken marriage. What horror for a child to grow up with parents who cripple their kids from day one with the weight of such impossible responsibility! Child abuse of the highest order.
Don't try to misunderstand me: of course, children add to your happiness! AND they will add to your problems. Such is life. But those of us who desire children and have kids IN ORDER TO be happier in life ought to burn in the hell of their daily misery. Guilt is the end product of a doomed undertaking of this kind. Guilt ridden kids who realize they will never be able to satisfy their insatiable and whacko parents. Later on, the crooked parents will--hopefully--grow into lifelong felt guilt for having committed this crime.
There is no long route to your happiness. We could go on and on, to house vs. apartment, living in the mountains or at the beach, being financially well off or struggling: your circumstances, as ideal as they may look from someone else's perspective, are NOT guaranteed resources for your happiness. Not even doing something you love is better suited to make you happy than kvetching along for decades on a disliked job. Yeah, but more money in the bank would definitely make me feel better. Horse shit! We are more creative inventing reasons for our misery than we are willing to be happy.
Studies show that happy people are not wealthier than unhappy individuals. Happy people are not healthier, and they don't have less problems in life than their miserable friends. Regardless of their income, happy people seem to donate more money to charity--to religious and non-religious causes--they even donate more blood and time. The happy ones also appear to belong to religious communities of their choice.
All fine and dandy: it includes the answer but it isn't the answer of how to be happy. Here it is--well, if you can take it, that is:
You cannot become happy. You can only BE happy. Instant happiness kicks in when you ADMIT that you, in fact, are happy already no matter how your life's circumstances may present themselves currently.
It's a tough one, I do know, but you got to bypass the reasoning of your intellect every single time if you care about your happiness and about the happiness of those around you. Being happy is not a selfish act: being miserable is! And both are somewhat contagious. It's not easy to display how happy you are when your loved ones are emotionally down. Happy individuals may feel the need to subdue their true emotional make up in public and especially in the presence of a depressed family member. The one feeling the "emptiness of the big black hole" controls her human environment. No one dares to admit happiness around such a person.
Unhappy and miserable people are the greatest egotists you will find! Don't fall in love with them. Don't marry them ("oh, I will change him"). Stay the hell out of the way of moping people! Unhappy people are the scourge of the earth.
Admit to being happy, baby! Almost always, you'll have to do it in the face of adverse forces. Is it worth it? You decide.
Happy Independence Day!
Egbert
P.S.: Final version of my book 'How to Better Hate Your Job' is not in print yet, but you may pick up an "Advanced Reader's Copy" through my website (http://www.moneybymistake.com/). Paperback is $11 or it'll cost you $1 if you want to download a copy. Yep, a single buck for the entire book!
Yet, your right to be happy is not enough if you care to be happy. No one can make you happy: your country can't, your spouse or lover can't, your children can't. Sure, there are people around us who make and bake children for their--the parents'--happiness or as a device to "heal" their broken marriage. What horror for a child to grow up with parents who cripple their kids from day one with the weight of such impossible responsibility! Child abuse of the highest order.
Don't try to misunderstand me: of course, children add to your happiness! AND they will add to your problems. Such is life. But those of us who desire children and have kids IN ORDER TO be happier in life ought to burn in the hell of their daily misery. Guilt is the end product of a doomed undertaking of this kind. Guilt ridden kids who realize they will never be able to satisfy their insatiable and whacko parents. Later on, the crooked parents will--hopefully--grow into lifelong felt guilt for having committed this crime.
There is no long route to your happiness. We could go on and on, to house vs. apartment, living in the mountains or at the beach, being financially well off or struggling: your circumstances, as ideal as they may look from someone else's perspective, are NOT guaranteed resources for your happiness. Not even doing something you love is better suited to make you happy than kvetching along for decades on a disliked job. Yeah, but more money in the bank would definitely make me feel better. Horse shit! We are more creative inventing reasons for our misery than we are willing to be happy.
Studies show that happy people are not wealthier than unhappy individuals. Happy people are not healthier, and they don't have less problems in life than their miserable friends. Regardless of their income, happy people seem to donate more money to charity--to religious and non-religious causes--they even donate more blood and time. The happy ones also appear to belong to religious communities of their choice.
All fine and dandy: it includes the answer but it isn't the answer of how to be happy. Here it is--well, if you can take it, that is:
You cannot become happy. You can only BE happy. Instant happiness kicks in when you ADMIT that you, in fact, are happy already no matter how your life's circumstances may present themselves currently.
It's a tough one, I do know, but you got to bypass the reasoning of your intellect every single time if you care about your happiness and about the happiness of those around you. Being happy is not a selfish act: being miserable is! And both are somewhat contagious. It's not easy to display how happy you are when your loved ones are emotionally down. Happy individuals may feel the need to subdue their true emotional make up in public and especially in the presence of a depressed family member. The one feeling the "emptiness of the big black hole" controls her human environment. No one dares to admit happiness around such a person.
Unhappy and miserable people are the greatest egotists you will find! Don't fall in love with them. Don't marry them ("oh, I will change him"). Stay the hell out of the way of moping people! Unhappy people are the scourge of the earth.
Admit to being happy, baby! Almost always, you'll have to do it in the face of adverse forces. Is it worth it? You decide.
Happy Independence Day!
Egbert
P.S.: Final version of my book 'How to Better Hate Your Job' is not in print yet, but you may pick up an "Advanced Reader's Copy" through my website (http://www.moneybymistake.com/). Paperback is $11 or it'll cost you $1 if you want to download a copy. Yep, a single buck for the entire book!
Sunday, June 29, 2008
money tantra
Is there a connection between money and our sex life or not? My good friend and "inspirator", Tom Volkar (http://www.delightfulwork.com/) recently joked about me telling people in this blog to get laid. Another subscriber from half around the globe asked me to write about how sex and cash connect. Gawd, I feel so torn ...
Firstly, money is more intimate an issue for us than sex. You and I know individuals who can walk into a bar tonight, establish a casual connection with a stranger, and have sex with person X within hours. Exchange of bodily fluids with a stranger is quite normal for some of us--including the taking of risks: manufacturing children (couple of decades of child support can easily be costlier than today's bank balance permits), serious illness, death--but none of these people would feel as willing and comfortable to exchange credit cards or to share their bank accounts with that same random acquaintance. On average, we care about those last $500 in our bank accounts more than about our very lives! On average, our sanity isn't worth much, is it?
Yeah, but that separates sex and money. Where is the junction between the two? I thought you'd never ask. Bad sex is better than no sex, just like some money is better than no money. Sure, we'd love to have a lot of both and of supreme quality, naturally, but reality may have humbled some of us here and there. Both, too little cash flow or a lack of a decent sexlife often translate to desperation. Desperate individuals are nervous, can get pushy, they're prone to use emotional blackmail, and they are likely to develop typical stalker qualities. We can smell such creepy folks from a twenty feet distance, and in business or in relationships we better run from them as fast as we can!
Here's the kicker: I know guys who believe women have no interest in them because they don't earn enough money. Wrong! Women sense desperation--a lack of confidence--and they don't waste their time on figuring out where its roots may be. No money is no problem, no self-respect is the problem. No sex is no problem either but feeling low, incomplete, and stressed about it is a huge disadvantage. People may shy away from doing business with you, "knowing" something is out of balance with you. Sex, money, who cares what caused it? No money or no sex did not cause anything: YOU are the cause of anxiety and of other people's response to it. When you are needy in ANY department, it will come out of your pores and most people around you will know. Neediness affects all other areas in your life negatively and it is between hard and impossible to fight against it. It is an uphill battle if there ever was one.
That's what I have in mind when I suggest to people who struggle with money issues, men and women alike: hey, why don't you get laid. Even your wallet may thank you. If and when you feel desperation somewhere in your life, locate a different area--seemingly disconnected from the painful subject--that allows you to make immediate improvements easily and playfully. That will do more for the complicated departments in your life than feverishly trying to force yourself to succeed where you've been stuck for awhile. By the same token, individuals with messed up relationships turn into workaholics, because that's what appears to work when nothing else will. It's o.k., but only temporarily. Use this technique as a trigger and not as a solution, or it will quickly become a new trap.
La petit mort--the small death--is a common way to experience orgasm and possibly a period of melancholy right afterwards. Bunches of people can't wait to get there, and then they realize they have just lost what they were after. In other words, people use sex to make the feelings (they so cherish) GO AWAY. Has the idea ever crossed your mind to compare orgasm with goal achievement and success in general? For lottery players, winning large amounts can be the worst that can happen to them. Success can be devastating and even deadly. Example: Amy Winehouse, Britney Spears, and Co.
Nothing wrong with success or orgasm but if that's the only thing that counts: you are doomed, with or without the orgasm, with or without material success. Performance anxiety, fear of not being able to make it or to get the partner where we believe she or he "should" end up, works nicely as a self-fulfilling prophecy. When we are anxious to get there--whatever "there" may be for us at the time--we are royally screwed. There will be no enjoyment of the entire process. No surprise people hate their jobs. We work for the weekends, for our goals, for successes--and we have sold our ability to be happy the entire time. We are having sex with an eagle eye on orgasm, and sex turns out to be stressful, a fine reason for arguments--verbal and non-verbal--and maybe the reason for extended stretches of no sex. Nice!
Our very goals can become reasons for under achievement. Having to make or fake an orgasm is likely to prevent the real thing from happening, and if it happens it'll be too quick. A small death: so frustrating and tiresome an experience that the guy will want to roll over and forget about it. The girl will lie awake for awhile, disappointed. And that's with orgasm, mind you. People are having some sort of what they call a sex life and they end up being more desperate than when they had no sex at all.
Success in life, your damn orgasms, windfalls of cashola--that stuff is meaningless and next to worthless, unless you enjoy and savor as much as you can whatever you are doing right now. Quickies can be fun, I agree, and so can lottery jackpots be a cheap thrill. But those things are not satisfying longterm. Idiots want to get the money and run from their pitiful cubicle life, just as thousands of couples want to get to the goodies as fast as they can, to get it over with. Rat races are for rats, and I refuse to race anywhere.
Are sex and money connected? Duh. I watch individuals breathe, and I know how their money life looks in general. I hear people bitch about their relationship to their work, and I have a pretty clear idea what's happening--or not--in their bedrooms. I cannot and I will not teach you tantra. In fact, I categorically refuse to teach anything to anybody, but I suggest you stick your nose into a couple of tantra books (for example: Diana Richardson, The Heart of Tantric Sex, A unique guide to love and sexual fulfillment).
I don't care about your stupid sex life: it's none of my business! But translate any tantric idea you come across into your work environment, and your happiness will get a kick in the buttocks that your money can feel.
Apropos books: final version of my book 'How to Better Hate Your Job' is still not in print yet, but you may pick up an "Advanced Reader's Copy" through my website (http://www.moneybymistake.com/). Paperback is $11.00 for this "Uncorrected Proof," or it'll cost you a puny buck if you want to download a copy. One condition: I want your feedback, a brief "blurb" I can include in the first edition! I don't care if it's positive or scathingly negative, but your feedback must be offbeat. Don't even think about boring my readers with normal niceties.
I love you too ... oh yeah, and your money!
Egbert
P.S.: There is no long road to happiness, you know? Only a short cut: admitting happiness, no matter what the circumstances may be like.
Firstly, money is more intimate an issue for us than sex. You and I know individuals who can walk into a bar tonight, establish a casual connection with a stranger, and have sex with person X within hours. Exchange of bodily fluids with a stranger is quite normal for some of us--including the taking of risks: manufacturing children (couple of decades of child support can easily be costlier than today's bank balance permits), serious illness, death--but none of these people would feel as willing and comfortable to exchange credit cards or to share their bank accounts with that same random acquaintance. On average, we care about those last $500 in our bank accounts more than about our very lives! On average, our sanity isn't worth much, is it?
Yeah, but that separates sex and money. Where is the junction between the two? I thought you'd never ask. Bad sex is better than no sex, just like some money is better than no money. Sure, we'd love to have a lot of both and of supreme quality, naturally, but reality may have humbled some of us here and there. Both, too little cash flow or a lack of a decent sexlife often translate to desperation. Desperate individuals are nervous, can get pushy, they're prone to use emotional blackmail, and they are likely to develop typical stalker qualities. We can smell such creepy folks from a twenty feet distance, and in business or in relationships we better run from them as fast as we can!
Here's the kicker: I know guys who believe women have no interest in them because they don't earn enough money. Wrong! Women sense desperation--a lack of confidence--and they don't waste their time on figuring out where its roots may be. No money is no problem, no self-respect is the problem. No sex is no problem either but feeling low, incomplete, and stressed about it is a huge disadvantage. People may shy away from doing business with you, "knowing" something is out of balance with you. Sex, money, who cares what caused it? No money or no sex did not cause anything: YOU are the cause of anxiety and of other people's response to it. When you are needy in ANY department, it will come out of your pores and most people around you will know. Neediness affects all other areas in your life negatively and it is between hard and impossible to fight against it. It is an uphill battle if there ever was one.
That's what I have in mind when I suggest to people who struggle with money issues, men and women alike: hey, why don't you get laid. Even your wallet may thank you. If and when you feel desperation somewhere in your life, locate a different area--seemingly disconnected from the painful subject--that allows you to make immediate improvements easily and playfully. That will do more for the complicated departments in your life than feverishly trying to force yourself to succeed where you've been stuck for awhile. By the same token, individuals with messed up relationships turn into workaholics, because that's what appears to work when nothing else will. It's o.k., but only temporarily. Use this technique as a trigger and not as a solution, or it will quickly become a new trap.
La petit mort--the small death--is a common way to experience orgasm and possibly a period of melancholy right afterwards. Bunches of people can't wait to get there, and then they realize they have just lost what they were after. In other words, people use sex to make the feelings (they so cherish) GO AWAY. Has the idea ever crossed your mind to compare orgasm with goal achievement and success in general? For lottery players, winning large amounts can be the worst that can happen to them. Success can be devastating and even deadly. Example: Amy Winehouse, Britney Spears, and Co.
Nothing wrong with success or orgasm but if that's the only thing that counts: you are doomed, with or without the orgasm, with or without material success. Performance anxiety, fear of not being able to make it or to get the partner where we believe she or he "should" end up, works nicely as a self-fulfilling prophecy. When we are anxious to get there--whatever "there" may be for us at the time--we are royally screwed. There will be no enjoyment of the entire process. No surprise people hate their jobs. We work for the weekends, for our goals, for successes--and we have sold our ability to be happy the entire time. We are having sex with an eagle eye on orgasm, and sex turns out to be stressful, a fine reason for arguments--verbal and non-verbal--and maybe the reason for extended stretches of no sex. Nice!
Our very goals can become reasons for under achievement. Having to make or fake an orgasm is likely to prevent the real thing from happening, and if it happens it'll be too quick. A small death: so frustrating and tiresome an experience that the guy will want to roll over and forget about it. The girl will lie awake for awhile, disappointed. And that's with orgasm, mind you. People are having some sort of what they call a sex life and they end up being more desperate than when they had no sex at all.
Success in life, your damn orgasms, windfalls of cashola--that stuff is meaningless and next to worthless, unless you enjoy and savor as much as you can whatever you are doing right now. Quickies can be fun, I agree, and so can lottery jackpots be a cheap thrill. But those things are not satisfying longterm. Idiots want to get the money and run from their pitiful cubicle life, just as thousands of couples want to get to the goodies as fast as they can, to get it over with. Rat races are for rats, and I refuse to race anywhere.
Are sex and money connected? Duh. I watch individuals breathe, and I know how their money life looks in general. I hear people bitch about their relationship to their work, and I have a pretty clear idea what's happening--or not--in their bedrooms. I cannot and I will not teach you tantra. In fact, I categorically refuse to teach anything to anybody, but I suggest you stick your nose into a couple of tantra books (for example: Diana Richardson, The Heart of Tantric Sex, A unique guide to love and sexual fulfillment).
I don't care about your stupid sex life: it's none of my business! But translate any tantric idea you come across into your work environment, and your happiness will get a kick in the buttocks that your money can feel.
Apropos books: final version of my book 'How to Better Hate Your Job' is still not in print yet, but you may pick up an "Advanced Reader's Copy" through my website (http://www.moneybymistake.com/). Paperback is $11.00 for this "Uncorrected Proof," or it'll cost you a puny buck if you want to download a copy. One condition: I want your feedback, a brief "blurb" I can include in the first edition! I don't care if it's positive or scathingly negative, but your feedback must be offbeat. Don't even think about boring my readers with normal niceties.
I love you too ... oh yeah, and your money!
Egbert
P.S.: There is no long road to happiness, you know? Only a short cut: admitting happiness, no matter what the circumstances may be like.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
hunter and gatherer
I admit it: I watched 'Sex and the City'--by myself. I don't have the excuse that a girl dragged me into a chick flick. It was my own doing, and I'm not even that gay. Here's what I saw:
We are a silly species. Rational decision makers? What are you talking about? No, we are nuts and obviously we have found sophisticated ways to enjoy that fact. Oh, this is just a stupid movie! Really? Sure, it's over the top, but you and I have met people who have made similar choices as the characters in Sex and the City. Damned, even I have married people while I should have followed my gut feeling and canceled the wedding on the wedding day, regardless of consequences and implications. Millions of people have watched this stuff season after season because too much of it rings painfully-enjoyably true.
Four girls move to NYC to find love, and twenty years later that dream hasn't materialized as intended. What a surprise! Some of them may have found what goes by the name of 'love' but, as you know, we get bored with what we have and we want more. Love won't do and we want marriage, a baby, or a $50,000 ring. Once we get that we are upset because it didn't show up "the right way." Remember Christmas gifts of your childhood: by mid January most of them had begun to collect dust.
Now, had these girls found love in the first episode of the first season, you wouldn't have seen hundreds or thousands of designer dresses--some cute, others so aggressively hideous that I wonder if women are too proud or too insecure to get their guys' opinion on their outfits before they attack the public. Even the cute ones aren't cute for everybody but a lot of girls apparently don't care or worse: lack taste. Selling haute couture was doubtlessly important to produce the series and the movie. But there is something else preventing these four girlfriends from finding love:
We don't want to find love!
We want to "pursue" it. The quest has more value to us than finding love and the impossibility of having to live with it. The pursuit of happiness is your inalienable right, as the Declaration of Independence states so prominently, NOT happiness itself. Same with love. The pursuit of love is so much fun. Once we believe we found the damn thing, we treat it and the other person in the most crappy ways. The person who loves us may be worth less to us than "the way he gave me that ring." Or a marriage becomes more important than the girl or guy we pretend to love. Love looks like a great idea for individuals who don't have it. The pursuit of love is cool. Once accomplished, the pursuit of something else is cooler. What we can't have has a higher value than the contents of our pocket. People are interesting until we "have" them ... or until we discover we never will. After that moment EVERYTHING changes! We resent people for succumbing to us, and we resent them for never giving in. There are exceptions but not many.
We live for the tension of hope, the electrical charge in the "becoming" phase, when we don't know if or when or how. We are junkies. Deep down in the core of our spines, we are hunters and gatherers. Some of us believe we evolve, learn, or spiral up to higher spheres of consciousness and higher vibrations. That's fine, but you better realize it's just another form of the same pursuit and no more sacred than hunting quail or carving another notch in the butt of your pistol. We learn how to operate cars and computers, but to this day we haven't figured out how to "operate" children and for sure we don't have the slightest idea how to be ourselves. Wow yeah, we sure have learned a lot! Throughout the millennia, we remain hunters and gatherers, and we are pretty good at it. Only problem is we think we should be somebody else.
There are parallels between the pursuit of love and our pursuit of money.
We are afraid to get there because dreams end with accomplishment. You know plenty of stories about lottery winners who literally destroyed themselves within a few years after being cursed with a jackpot. They discovered they were the same useless fools after than they were before, and self-destruction kicked in. Money in large quantities just makes obvious who we are. It takes away the mystery we treasure. Money works like a looking glass, making clear--painfully so at times--and public what we are made of. Money makes good people visible and it makes idiots visible. A great number of people hesitate making huge chunks of money, because they are scared to remove all doubt. We want the pursuit but spare us the sobering experience of end results.
The dumb thing is we don't admit how much we enjoy the pursuit. We claim we hate our jobs, and we would be willing to leave our despised jobs if we got the big pile of dough. Nonsense! We love the work we complain about and we love it MORE than anything else, including quick riches. That's why we work where we work. Duh.
We love the hunting and gathering part (of money, goals, husbands, one-night stands, diamond rings), and we do well to stand up for it. Not getting there is not a problem! Naturally there are challenges during any hunt, but they and exactly the stuff we hate are what turns an otherwise instant collapse of our dreams into a drawn out hunt. Reaching a goal "collapses dreams?" Yep. Poof, and the precious tension, driving force and your energy source, is gone. By definition, lots of the stuff you acquire become worthless in the instance of success.
Should you stop pursuing goals, money, love? Of course not! But you could do the same and enjoy the happiness OF the pursuit. Eventually getting what you were after will not take away from the happiness you already have. The stuff you want will then fall into the hands of someone who is worthy: You!
Egbert Sukop
We are a silly species. Rational decision makers? What are you talking about? No, we are nuts and obviously we have found sophisticated ways to enjoy that fact. Oh, this is just a stupid movie! Really? Sure, it's over the top, but you and I have met people who have made similar choices as the characters in Sex and the City. Damned, even I have married people while I should have followed my gut feeling and canceled the wedding on the wedding day, regardless of consequences and implications. Millions of people have watched this stuff season after season because too much of it rings painfully-enjoyably true.
Four girls move to NYC to find love, and twenty years later that dream hasn't materialized as intended. What a surprise! Some of them may have found what goes by the name of 'love' but, as you know, we get bored with what we have and we want more. Love won't do and we want marriage, a baby, or a $50,000 ring. Once we get that we are upset because it didn't show up "the right way." Remember Christmas gifts of your childhood: by mid January most of them had begun to collect dust.
Now, had these girls found love in the first episode of the first season, you wouldn't have seen hundreds or thousands of designer dresses--some cute, others so aggressively hideous that I wonder if women are too proud or too insecure to get their guys' opinion on their outfits before they attack the public. Even the cute ones aren't cute for everybody but a lot of girls apparently don't care or worse: lack taste. Selling haute couture was doubtlessly important to produce the series and the movie. But there is something else preventing these four girlfriends from finding love:
We don't want to find love!
We want to "pursue" it. The quest has more value to us than finding love and the impossibility of having to live with it. The pursuit of happiness is your inalienable right, as the Declaration of Independence states so prominently, NOT happiness itself. Same with love. The pursuit of love is so much fun. Once we believe we found the damn thing, we treat it and the other person in the most crappy ways. The person who loves us may be worth less to us than "the way he gave me that ring." Or a marriage becomes more important than the girl or guy we pretend to love. Love looks like a great idea for individuals who don't have it. The pursuit of love is cool. Once accomplished, the pursuit of something else is cooler. What we can't have has a higher value than the contents of our pocket. People are interesting until we "have" them ... or until we discover we never will. After that moment EVERYTHING changes! We resent people for succumbing to us, and we resent them for never giving in. There are exceptions but not many.
We live for the tension of hope, the electrical charge in the "becoming" phase, when we don't know if or when or how. We are junkies. Deep down in the core of our spines, we are hunters and gatherers. Some of us believe we evolve, learn, or spiral up to higher spheres of consciousness and higher vibrations. That's fine, but you better realize it's just another form of the same pursuit and no more sacred than hunting quail or carving another notch in the butt of your pistol. We learn how to operate cars and computers, but to this day we haven't figured out how to "operate" children and for sure we don't have the slightest idea how to be ourselves. Wow yeah, we sure have learned a lot! Throughout the millennia, we remain hunters and gatherers, and we are pretty good at it. Only problem is we think we should be somebody else.
There are parallels between the pursuit of love and our pursuit of money.
We are afraid to get there because dreams end with accomplishment. You know plenty of stories about lottery winners who literally destroyed themselves within a few years after being cursed with a jackpot. They discovered they were the same useless fools after than they were before, and self-destruction kicked in. Money in large quantities just makes obvious who we are. It takes away the mystery we treasure. Money works like a looking glass, making clear--painfully so at times--and public what we are made of. Money makes good people visible and it makes idiots visible. A great number of people hesitate making huge chunks of money, because they are scared to remove all doubt. We want the pursuit but spare us the sobering experience of end results.
The dumb thing is we don't admit how much we enjoy the pursuit. We claim we hate our jobs, and we would be willing to leave our despised jobs if we got the big pile of dough. Nonsense! We love the work we complain about and we love it MORE than anything else, including quick riches. That's why we work where we work. Duh.
We love the hunting and gathering part (of money, goals, husbands, one-night stands, diamond rings), and we do well to stand up for it. Not getting there is not a problem! Naturally there are challenges during any hunt, but they and exactly the stuff we hate are what turns an otherwise instant collapse of our dreams into a drawn out hunt. Reaching a goal "collapses dreams?" Yep. Poof, and the precious tension, driving force and your energy source, is gone. By definition, lots of the stuff you acquire become worthless in the instance of success.
Should you stop pursuing goals, money, love? Of course not! But you could do the same and enjoy the happiness OF the pursuit. Eventually getting what you were after will not take away from the happiness you already have. The stuff you want will then fall into the hands of someone who is worthy: You!
Egbert Sukop
Sunday, June 8, 2008
outsourcerer
I grew up in Germany on a water mill and farm that had been in my family's possession for over 800 years. Farmers love to see their kids become farmers also, and so did my parents. They talk their brood into developing love for the soil and for hard, honest work. They proudly tell their children about generations of down-to-earth business as down-to-earth can ever be. Aah, farming! One of the two oldest professions, both trustworthy and noble ...
It didn't take long for me to figure out that farms in Northern Germany made most money producing sugar beets, a highly subsidized crop. For decades German farmers survived--some of them quite comfortably--by destroying the livelihood of cane sugar farmers worldwide. The German government--the tax payer--has a nice history of preventing outsourcing.
Before I hit age 21 I learned that, to a degree, starvation in developing countries was caused and maintained by people in civilized (sic!) countries too proud and arrogant to let go of their outdated jobs. I was one of those people. As if it's not enough of a guilt trip to grow up German, the idea of continued farming and family tradition made me sick to my stomach. If you dumb yourself down enough and numb yourself sufficiently, you can do it.
How deeply can you be in love with "your own" soil, your clod of earth, when you know it's been financed by people who have nothing to eat, and paid for by your fellow countrymen who actually produce something of real market value? Hell, I probably killed people (in the Third World, as it used to be called back then) just by growing up peacefully.
It never seizes to amaze me how murderous non-violence can be. Apropos, the holocaust was not based on violence and hatred, either: it was made possible by a non-violent society, by people who wanted nothing more than their damn peace, by individuals like you and me lacking balls and spine to stand up for themselves and for another person's very life. You know, it took me many years to realize this, but the dirty truth is I have no respect whatsoever for a soft spoken ass who wants peace no matter what. Peaceful people can be of the most cruel nature.
Uh yes, we do have a subject. Prevention of outsourcing the sugar production in Germany not only guaranteed existing jobs, but permitted for new generations of farmers to grow into the same position of down-to-earth thievery. Yes, I learned that too: someone who tells you he is down-to-earth may just as well be a thief, willing for others to pay exorbitant taxes so that he can pretend to be needed in his society. Moreover, the down-to-earth person may not stop stealing from you until all you have left is the bare earth you are sitting on. Down to the last bit of earth you got ... if you happen to live on the wrong side of the globe. For the last thirthy some years I have not trusted anybody selling herself as a down to earth individual.
Remember "the elevator man?" These guys--yeah, definitely a vocation too sophisticated for women--spent their miserable lives in uniforms, riding up and down in a stinky cube with people too elevated to have a one-minute conversation with. There was a time in the history of employment when elevator operators were scared to lose their dreadful jobs! You think you hate your job? Pussy (I won't apologize)! No matter what you do for a living, it can't possibly be as dark and doomed as being literally stuck in an elevator your entire adult life. 30 - 40 years in an elevator, imagine that. And they still hated losing their jobs to computers that would allow a five year old to reach her destination if she was tall enough to push the correct button.
I can relate to folks afraid to lose their jobs to someone in Asia who can do the same for a fraction of the money you demand. But, do you miss the career opportunity of the elevator man? As high up as he got from time to time, how sad and disappointed are you that you are denied his kind of life? If you don't suffer from the absence of superb elevator operator job opportunities, nobody will miss the jobs you deem worth defending today--thirty years from now. Sooner or later the stuff you are doing will be obsolete.
People hate their jobs, and then they hate it even more when their object of hatred has been given to someone else to hate. Sure, we want to end poverty in the world and we like to help people, but giving them what we hate--our most useless jobs--is still too good for them. We like to help people in developing regions with goodies that are worse than what we hate. Quietly we hope these people in India, China, Vietnam, and Pakistan will become as civilized as we are. We hope they will become thieves like us, also willing to steal tax money from productive people. We hope they too will be callous enough one day to take from the poorest who'd love to do better--uh, when it comes to your job you don't think cheaper is better, do you?--what we can do so wonderfully expensive. For those who object to outsourcing, civilized equals superfluous.
If your job can be given away, there is something better for you to do, something more meaningful, with a real market value and most likely greater compensation. Being pissed off at "evil corporations" for losing hated jobs that lack sophistication and can't pay for their existence is one of the dumbest things I have seen our societies capable of. Why aren't we upset with an educational system and with school teachers who fail to teach what we need to make money without reaching into other people's pockets?
Funny, some of the wealthiest individuals on planet earth don't have a complete college or even high school education. They did not learn their trade or craft in school. They certainly didn't learn in school how to be successful. Teachers can teach you how to become a slave, how to get a job you will hate for life, and how to hold on to your subject of hatred until you retire and die (peacefully). School teachers have learned from their teacher's union--one of the most powerful organizations in the country--to use political leverage to maintain outdated, idiotic, and useless things.
Teachers are failing daily to teach what a human being needs to know to adapt to quickly changing markets, to be creative to invent your own opportunities as you need them, to keep you out of slavery, to--God forbid--make yourself and those around you happy. Too much to ask, I know. I don't blame the teachers. But by Gus, I cannot blame companies for their interest in making a profit for their shareholders--for you and me--and for moving to other locations that which everybody here has hated to do for years. How nuts are we, really?!
Who has taught us to crave slavery so much? We are willing to do what we hate to put $2,000 rims on our cars? What a crooked, corrupt bunch of useless pricks we are! My shiny rims are more important than a dumbass in India who wants to feed his damn brats? Fifty years from now, most of the employment market as we know it will have disappeared, and rightfully so. Our modern day job slavery will be abolished. Those who hang on to it are not on your side, nor on the side of humanity.
Motivational speakers? Gone, 'cause only people who hate what they're doing need motivational snake oil. Blood sucking slave traders, I'm sorry: employment agencies like Monster, will not be looked at as favorably in the distant future. Preparation for retirement will be called by its name: time-released suicide. Hey, you want to retire some day? You know already your life sucks!
We hate it, and therefore it must be a good thing? If that's what you learned in school, you should have spent that time with a truck load of bourbon. It could not have been worse. I do what I hate and I hate what I do until retire, is a statement of a wasted life. How pathetic!
"What do you want to do?" means for too many people, "I don't know. I have to see what's out there that I can hate doing." I am confident that's not you, but we spend our lives next to people who think and suffer that way through their desperate existence.
Instigate individuals to make a buck in their own name, outside of the slavery of jobs. It costs you nothing to make someone else hungry to take initiative for her own business. Question the status quo, and you may help a person realize there is a "parallel world" of more fun, more profit, and perhaps more happiness ripe and ready to be picked.
Egbert
It didn't take long for me to figure out that farms in Northern Germany made most money producing sugar beets, a highly subsidized crop. For decades German farmers survived--some of them quite comfortably--by destroying the livelihood of cane sugar farmers worldwide. The German government--the tax payer--has a nice history of preventing outsourcing.
Before I hit age 21 I learned that, to a degree, starvation in developing countries was caused and maintained by people in civilized (sic!) countries too proud and arrogant to let go of their outdated jobs. I was one of those people. As if it's not enough of a guilt trip to grow up German, the idea of continued farming and family tradition made me sick to my stomach. If you dumb yourself down enough and numb yourself sufficiently, you can do it.
How deeply can you be in love with "your own" soil, your clod of earth, when you know it's been financed by people who have nothing to eat, and paid for by your fellow countrymen who actually produce something of real market value? Hell, I probably killed people (in the Third World, as it used to be called back then) just by growing up peacefully.
It never seizes to amaze me how murderous non-violence can be. Apropos, the holocaust was not based on violence and hatred, either: it was made possible by a non-violent society, by people who wanted nothing more than their damn peace, by individuals like you and me lacking balls and spine to stand up for themselves and for another person's very life. You know, it took me many years to realize this, but the dirty truth is I have no respect whatsoever for a soft spoken ass who wants peace no matter what. Peaceful people can be of the most cruel nature.
Uh yes, we do have a subject. Prevention of outsourcing the sugar production in Germany not only guaranteed existing jobs, but permitted for new generations of farmers to grow into the same position of down-to-earth thievery. Yes, I learned that too: someone who tells you he is down-to-earth may just as well be a thief, willing for others to pay exorbitant taxes so that he can pretend to be needed in his society. Moreover, the down-to-earth person may not stop stealing from you until all you have left is the bare earth you are sitting on. Down to the last bit of earth you got ... if you happen to live on the wrong side of the globe. For the last thirthy some years I have not trusted anybody selling herself as a down to earth individual.
Remember "the elevator man?" These guys--yeah, definitely a vocation too sophisticated for women--spent their miserable lives in uniforms, riding up and down in a stinky cube with people too elevated to have a one-minute conversation with. There was a time in the history of employment when elevator operators were scared to lose their dreadful jobs! You think you hate your job? Pussy (I won't apologize)! No matter what you do for a living, it can't possibly be as dark and doomed as being literally stuck in an elevator your entire adult life. 30 - 40 years in an elevator, imagine that. And they still hated losing their jobs to computers that would allow a five year old to reach her destination if she was tall enough to push the correct button.
I can relate to folks afraid to lose their jobs to someone in Asia who can do the same for a fraction of the money you demand. But, do you miss the career opportunity of the elevator man? As high up as he got from time to time, how sad and disappointed are you that you are denied his kind of life? If you don't suffer from the absence of superb elevator operator job opportunities, nobody will miss the jobs you deem worth defending today--thirty years from now. Sooner or later the stuff you are doing will be obsolete.
People hate their jobs, and then they hate it even more when their object of hatred has been given to someone else to hate. Sure, we want to end poverty in the world and we like to help people, but giving them what we hate--our most useless jobs--is still too good for them. We like to help people in developing regions with goodies that are worse than what we hate. Quietly we hope these people in India, China, Vietnam, and Pakistan will become as civilized as we are. We hope they will become thieves like us, also willing to steal tax money from productive people. We hope they too will be callous enough one day to take from the poorest who'd love to do better--uh, when it comes to your job you don't think cheaper is better, do you?--what we can do so wonderfully expensive. For those who object to outsourcing, civilized equals superfluous.
If your job can be given away, there is something better for you to do, something more meaningful, with a real market value and most likely greater compensation. Being pissed off at "evil corporations" for losing hated jobs that lack sophistication and can't pay for their existence is one of the dumbest things I have seen our societies capable of. Why aren't we upset with an educational system and with school teachers who fail to teach what we need to make money without reaching into other people's pockets?
Funny, some of the wealthiest individuals on planet earth don't have a complete college or even high school education. They did not learn their trade or craft in school. They certainly didn't learn in school how to be successful. Teachers can teach you how to become a slave, how to get a job you will hate for life, and how to hold on to your subject of hatred until you retire and die (peacefully). School teachers have learned from their teacher's union--one of the most powerful organizations in the country--to use political leverage to maintain outdated, idiotic, and useless things.
Teachers are failing daily to teach what a human being needs to know to adapt to quickly changing markets, to be creative to invent your own opportunities as you need them, to keep you out of slavery, to--God forbid--make yourself and those around you happy. Too much to ask, I know. I don't blame the teachers. But by Gus, I cannot blame companies for their interest in making a profit for their shareholders--for you and me--and for moving to other locations that which everybody here has hated to do for years. How nuts are we, really?!
Who has taught us to crave slavery so much? We are willing to do what we hate to put $2,000 rims on our cars? What a crooked, corrupt bunch of useless pricks we are! My shiny rims are more important than a dumbass in India who wants to feed his damn brats? Fifty years from now, most of the employment market as we know it will have disappeared, and rightfully so. Our modern day job slavery will be abolished. Those who hang on to it are not on your side, nor on the side of humanity.
Motivational speakers? Gone, 'cause only people who hate what they're doing need motivational snake oil. Blood sucking slave traders, I'm sorry: employment agencies like Monster, will not be looked at as favorably in the distant future. Preparation for retirement will be called by its name: time-released suicide. Hey, you want to retire some day? You know already your life sucks!
We hate it, and therefore it must be a good thing? If that's what you learned in school, you should have spent that time with a truck load of bourbon. It could not have been worse. I do what I hate and I hate what I do until retire, is a statement of a wasted life. How pathetic!
"What do you want to do?" means for too many people, "I don't know. I have to see what's out there that I can hate doing." I am confident that's not you, but we spend our lives next to people who think and suffer that way through their desperate existence.
Instigate individuals to make a buck in their own name, outside of the slavery of jobs. It costs you nothing to make someone else hungry to take initiative for her own business. Question the status quo, and you may help a person realize there is a "parallel world" of more fun, more profit, and perhaps more happiness ripe and ready to be picked.
Egbert
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)