You Must Work

To adequately care for ourselves and others in modern society, we must produce a sufficient income. Few are afforded the opportunity to generate a livable wage doing something they are enthusiastic about. In fact, people are frequently cornered into accepting unfulfilling, boring, dead-end and demanding jobs to survive—often to one’s own detriment. At the very least, most people experience some level of discontentment with their job position. This dissatisfaction leads to low retention rates and high employee turnover for businesses. Even after settling for lackluster employment that is physically and mentally taxing, people still struggle to satisfy their needs, remain underemployed, or are exploited. Many cannot afford basic necessities, a majority struggle to live securely and comfortably, and few experience the privilege of hedonism that they chase. Wages are often unfair and remain stagnant despite rising inflation rates, making it increasingly more challenging, expensive, and demanding to afford a moderate quality of life—and the wealth gap continues to grow.

It’s A Job Just To Have A Job

Many traditional jobs are arduous, low-benefit, exploitive, and can be humiliating. Whether frequently or infrequently, employees across-the-board commonly express experiencing a level of dehumanization—a feeling they are perceived as, treated like, or have the expectations of mindless, submissive machines that do not fatigue. The process of securing employment is daunting, stressful, and competitive—often requiring major financial investment prior to procuring an income, one without guarantee for return. A 2018 report by the Federal Reserve found that millennials are not as well off as their parents were at their age, they have less earnings, less assets, and less wealth. As the human population grows and technology advances, human jobs are increasingly being replaced by robotics and AI. Competition in the job market is only expected to intensify as the ever cheaper, more efficient, and effective machines—that do not require wages or benefits—replace the accident-prone, needy, unfocused, and unreliable human worker.

Betting Our Lives

Jobs are a gamble that force people to bet their lives and well-being on the potential they may win prosperity. Depending on the nature of the position, one may have to wager their sanity, safety, bodily functioning/health, and/or integrity in pursuit of financial security. The repercussions of such a gamble can result in minor to severe mental and/or physical health ailments, injury, stress, fatigue, burnout, and even suicide. For many of us, our jobs consume such a large percentage of our time that we struggle to invest in anything outside of eating, sleeping, and basic sanitary care. We are taught that if we work hard we can have and do anything we want, yet so many people work multiple jobs and are never even able to escape out of debt or live anywhere close to a fulfilling and worthwhile existence.

Born To Cope

Scarcity is an inevitable component of modern human existence and a fundamental aspect of modern economics. The pursuit of abundance comes with high cost and little guarantee. In a desperate attempt to avoid falling into despair, humans become reliant on coping mechanisms that often distort reality or create minor delusions in the user, adding a rose tint to the clearer lenses with which they use to perceive the world around them. There is no appeal or reason in bringing new life into a world that mandates ritualistic dependency on coping tactics to simply make it to the next day.