A corporate Job is a modern day version of slavery! A employee is a modern day version of a slave – cubicle or meeting room is the prison, the boss & the employer is the master. There is no control over the destiny. The office decides the schedule. The job profile is just a cog in the wheel, rather than the wheel; this gives little sense of accomplishment. This gives way to a sense of nihilism…imagine what it does to your self esteem.
Just look around you…you, your boss, his boss, his boss’s boss. What is everyone chasing! If you ask them, chances are they will make some motherhood statements like:
- You need a challenge in your life
- I’ve a passion for SMEs (someone heading SME Loans in a Bank!)
- I’m career minded
- I love getting things done by leading a team
If you deep, you’ll probably conclude that it’s about a mad chase of money. So much money that they’re never going to use it in their life. One who has Rs.1Cr thinks, it will be nice to have Rs.5 Crs, one who has 5, thinks 20 will be nice. One who has 20 is gunning for 100!
(For those who genuinely do not have enough money and any other decent source of earnings, money can be a good enough reason. Or, it may appear to be so. I”ll come back to you in just a minute!)
If you dig deeper, you’ll realise that it is not really about money either. Because, they have already earned much much more than they are going to need in this life.
Then what is it!
It is herd mentality and lack of independent thinking. We get onto the Hedonistic Treadmill and keep running. Not only that, you keep running at a faster & faster pace, without realising that you are more or less at the same place.
We get into a hedonic trap. We earn more, we create more liabilities (bigger car, more cars, bigger house, more houses). To service those liabilities we run even harder.
And yet, there are those who earn enough to service all their liabilities…still they don’t hop off the Treadmill. What explains that – lack of independent thinking. They simply stop thinking..period. They have zombified their life. They just get up every morning, get on the treadmill, run their wits off the whole day, crash land on their bed. Repeat. In short, they zombify themselves. They lose the capacity or willingness to think independently. They just go through motions, like everyone else around.
“My Boss is slogging, my colleague is slogging, my neighbour is slogging. It must be that slogging is life & life is slogging”
In this mad & mindless pursuit, we ignore the most important things in our lives – our loved ones, our innate interests & passions, our health, peace, and happiness…and trade them for unhealthy competition, envy, angst, stress, poor health, long hours of daily commuting, dealing with people we don’t like and doing things we hate doing, and of course tie!
Jack Ma, Chinese Business Magnate, said…
“If you put bananas and money in front of monkeys, monkeys will choose bananas because monkeys do not know that money can buy a lot of bananas. In reality, if you put money and health in front of people, people tend to choose money because too many people do not know that health can bring more money and happiness. Nothing is more valuable than health.”
Now, let your thoughts segue into life…
Confucius said…
“We have two lives, and the second one begins when we realise that we have only one.”
I give you two thought experiments to drill this down. I tell this to everyone.So many of my friends have heard these thought experiments from me over drinks. Why should you miss out! Here they are:
Let’s face it. You only live once. Life is too short to squander on wasteful people and wasteful activities. The average life expectancy of a human being is around 70-75 years. If you’re reading this chances are that about half of it is gone. Also, if you are in an employment rat race, chances are that the chronic stress is not going to let you even last the average mark. Even if you do, the quality of life will be a drag.
I’m sure you must have heard this or read this…when people, on their deathbed, are asked about their biggest regrets, they generally do not regret things they have done, they regret about things they haven’t done.
What should you do? You need to live the remaining part of your life to the fullest possible, on your own terms – not getting pushed around by “destiny”, your boss, next best job that comes your way etc. The objective is to “Live Deliberately”….Hold the bull by the horn.
“Be intentional in every aspect of your life. Happen to your life instead of letting your life happen to you.”
– Bruce Van Horn
Mind you, I have got nothing against working in an employment:
- if you look forward to going to your office every Monday morning
- if, even if you have only 5 years of life left, you would love to spend most of those 5 years in the office
- if, even if the employer doesn’t pay you a penny, you would still love to do it, because it is your passion
I have no objection to your job, if any of these conditions are met. I have an objection against your job, if you’re doing it:
- only for money, dragging yourself to the office every Monday, leaving your soul behind at home.
- because you’re caught in a hedonic treadmill. You are chasing the wrong matrix – job titles, bigger cars, bigger houses etc. We attach a ton of value and self identity & self worth with our hedonic pleasures including Job Titles and the spurious respect that comes along from society, colleagues and subordinates
- just for the heck of it…because everyone around seems to be doing it. This is a mindless pursuit of nothing. It is an abject inability to think independently.
Wait, you’re still scratching your head. You would love to live a life on your own terms, but still wondering how’s that even possible. Don’t worry, if I’ve got you till here, I can take you further..
Let’s take the three of you one by one:
- Those who work only for money: To start with there are thousands of ways to make money. It’s just that you’re stuck in something, which doesn’t enthrall you enough. The idea is to first remind you of your interests or passions, or skills or strengths. A bit like Lord Hanuman was reminded of his powers by his mates! It is said that every individual is unique. He or she brings a unique set of skills & innate talents. For a lot of us, thanks to circumstances, society norms and education system, this uniqueness gets hidden under a layer of patina. Rediscover your innate talents & interests. List down the skills you have acquired over the years. Analyse the strength of the network you have built over the years. Start putting things together. Put your innate skills & passions to work, using the skills you have developed over the years and collaborating with the network of people you have built strong linkages with. Spend an hour everyday, spend every weekend on making this work. This is where work & life lose their distinction. Also, unlike your current job, you’ve a far better chance to excel, because this is your unique innate thing you were born with. I belonged to this category. I have found investing and writing as my natural interests. I enjoy every moment of my life. Work is play & play is work!
- Those who’ve got caught in the hedonic treadmill: There are three harmful addictions:
- Smoking
- Sugar
- Salary
Most people are aware of the first two, but are completely oblivious to the third. The lure of stable, consistent income is irresistible. It keeps growing at a steady pace, with an annual shot in the arm of bonus or incentives. We fall for the lure, take it for granted to the extent that we even start discounting the net present value of future salaries and bonuses. Based on the discounting of NPVs, we hop on to a hedonic overdrive and buy things on loans. We start looking at the prices in terms of EMIs, rather than overall. This pushes us into a vicious loop of expectations of higher salaries resulting in increasing the liabilities, which pushes us further to increase our salaries. This soon becomes an endless loop. The only way out is to stop growing the liabilities. You need to get into a serious mode of deleveraging. Pay off the high cost loans. A subset of this problem is the fascination with the Job title and the pseudo respect that comes with it. It helps to realise that in today’s world nobody really cares about nobody. If you chase the wrong matrix, you’ll get to be an Associate Senior Deputy Vice President of a large MNC with a pot belly, diabetes and knee problems; you’ll be making a presentation for your annual performance review, while your daughter will be cutting her birthday cake at home!
- Zombies – These are the people who are rich. They have more money than they can ever spend in their life. Yet, they continue their job mindlessly…like a zombie. They suffer from a lack of independent thinking. The reason for such a behaviour was given by one of the most influential physicists of all time – Sir Isaac Newton! He proposed his laws of motion. The very first of this law elicited the concept of Inertia. Paraphrasing the law in the context of the Zombies…
A person in a state of Job will continue to be in the state of Job until & unless he is acted upon by an external force.
A zombie mindlessly orbits around his employment in circles. He needs an external force which gives him an escape velocity – a velocity which helps him escape the forces of gravity of the employment. Ask yourself…
Why should you work for money, if you have money to work for you!
Another way to look at the zombification is to look at it like a bad habit. You’ve got habituated to this way of living. Your cues are set – You day starts with looking at office emails, To Do lists & reminders; You get calls from your colleagues, clients. This sets you into your habitual grind. You spend the entire day running from one calendar entry to another. You attend office works right till your dinner time. Hit the bed. repeat. There are cues right from the start of the day to the end. These cues keep you in the habit. You don’t even realise this.
One of the ways of getting rid of bad habits is by changing the environment. James Clear, in his book, Atomic Habits says,
“Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behaviour. Every habit is context dependent….It is easier to build a new habit with a new context than to build a new habit in the face of competing cues.”
Sometimes, the change comes uninvited & unwelcomed. The equations in the office get sour. That makes people question “Why the heck do I even need to do this?” But there is a better, more proactive way. I took that path…
Remember, the last family holiday you had. Those three weeks were so refreshing. You didn’t want to come back, did you! You felt that you got to know yourself so much in those three weeks. Alas, such a holiday comes just once a year! The problem is that by the time you unwind, the winding starts again. Plus the phone and email, hardly let you unwind.
This time, go for a longish holiday. We all have accumulated leaves, accumulating for so many years. Take them all. Plus take some unpaid leaves. Even better, take a sabbatical. That’s what I did. I took a 9 month sabbatical, with a pre-written condition that I will have nothing to do with office work – no phone calls, no emails, no nothing! Such a long break helps you really unwind. You unlearn the bad habit. No waking up with alarms, no phone calls, no emergencies,no ties, long walks, swimming with kids, painting, movies, theatre, long drives, birthdays, anniversary, enjoying the rain, cooking, star gazing, gardening…the list is endless. Live aimlessness for some time. This will help you get out of the zombie mode. Free time is the biggest source of creativity and wisdom. Your subconscious mind knows all the answers, you just don’t listen to it. With this sabbatical, you are bound to look at life differently. Once, you have reached a state of tranquility, take a white board. Write down,
| Top 10 people you want to spend the rest of your life with | Top 10 things you want to do for the rest of your life |
| Top 10 people you hate so much that you don’t want to see their face again | Top 10 things that enervate you so much that you don’t want to do them again |
This white board markings, created with a state of calm should be carved in stone (figuratively speaking!). This is your life rule book. This is the starting point of the second life that Confucius must be referring to. This rule book should guide you during every step you take for the rest of your life – you take the step, if it confirms with the rule, else you do not take the step.
From here on, you have to work towards building the new “habit”; a new lifestyle, which is in sync with your priorities. For me some of my priorities were my kids, my wife, parents, brother & his family, some close friends & relatives, my health, 8 hours of sleep, quenching my thirst for wisdom through extensive reading, and full time investing. Also, I wanted to eliminate all kinds of negativity from my life – influence of negative people, negative environment, moments of squeeze, traffic jams, meetings etc.
If you have reached this stage, half of the job is done. Most of the people fail to break out of this zombie behaviour.
The next step is not to let this moment of inspiration fizzle out.
“Inspiration is perishable…so when you have it act on it then & there.”
– Naval Ravikant
Act on the inspiration promptly. Take the next step. Get the engine rolling and let the Newton’s Law of Inertia provide some tailwind.
Next Steps:
- Figure out your finances. Assets & Liabilities. You need to have at least 5-10 years of fuel in the tank to maintain your existing lifestyle.
- Figure out your area of interest & expertise, in which you can meaningfully employ yourself. How can you monetise your skills & expertise. For most, it emerges from either their innate passions or their expertise & skills that they have developed over the years. For me it was the field of Financial Markets.
- Depending on the financial situation, give yourself adequate time. Row in two boats for some time – continue with your Corporate Slavery, while you work overtime to build your base. If it helps, keep a deadline say bonus in the 2nd year from now and work backwards.
- Keep small milestone targets. This gives you a sense of achievement and keeps you going.
- Your family support matters a lot at such a stage. Keep your spouse involved. If it helps, make your spouse also read this!
Then finally, when the D-Day comes – time to take the leap of faith…take it! Do not wait for a perfect moment. Things will never be perfect. Good enough is good enough. Here are a couple of quotes to motivate you:
“For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn’t conspire against you, but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. “Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to your grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it “eventually”, just do it and correct course along the way.” – Timothy Ferriss
…and this one by Emma Bombeck
“There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, “Yes, I’ve got dreams, of course I’ve got dreams”. Then they put the box away and bring it out once in a while to look in it and yep, they’re still there.”
Are there risks…of course there are. But, learn how to cover those risks.
Are there possible failures…of course there are. But they are possible in your job as well. Outcome of an endeavour is not always in your control. What is in your control is the process and your ability to survive & then thrive. Your ability to survive & thrive is arguably better in the field of your choice.
Remember, even if you do not succeed in money terms or social status terms, you will still be happier, because you will be following your heart…something, that you will love to do. You will not drag yourself to work every Monday, because Work will be play & play will be work!
From the movie, Pirates of the Carribean…
Carina Smyth – I’m not looking for trouble
Jack Sparrow – What a horrible way to live!
So, get up Champion & take the leap of faith. Don’t worry, I’ll watch your Six!
