As I sit at this place, another dreary day at work, I can’t help thinking what I’ve been thinking for a long time now: that I’m wasting away my life here. What do I do? I analyse mathematical equations, develop algorithms and write code. I do this because I get a paycheck every two weeks. A paycheck that helps me pay my bills. But then, life is more than about paying bills. All the fancy gadgets, the stylish clothing and the most expensive desserts can not compensate for the emotional upheaval and the psychological stress I overcome to step into office everyday, for the disenchantment I feel for contributing nothing meaningful to society, for the perpetual feeling of hollow emptiness that covinces me of the wasted effort my life has become. So what causes such disillusionment? What would its consequence be? How to rectify it? What am I going to do about it?
Disinterest, disenchantment, disillusion
Every job can be interesting, exciting and fulfilling – to the right person. For every job, howsoever menial, boring or unrewarding it may seem to others, there will be those who can find their life’s calling in it. There will be those who choose, of their own free will, to place themselves at an opportunity others may consider a liability. And then there will be those who find themselves at that position through the vagaries of circumstance. And it is between these two categories of people that the starkest discrepancies in the effort-result ratios can be found. Interest, eagerness and innovation will drive the former to ever greater heights, while disinterest, indifference and stagnation will drag the latter into the swamp of irrelevance. It is important to understand that even to those find themselves employed through machinations of happenstance, the initial reaction to any new work will be that of excitement. Most often, the cause of this excitement is not genuine or new-found realization of life’s true purpose, but merely that of a fundamental human trait: curiosity. Much like a child that has been handed a new toy, howsoever uninteresting, it is fundamental human nature to explore anything that happens anew in life. It is only after the wearing off of the curiosity that the true feelings for that entity (or phenomenon) will surface from within. And it is at this stage that the iniated and uninitated split off, charting their paths in opposite directions – the intiated going on towards interest, excitement, enchantment and fulfilment, and the uninitiated towards disinterest, indifference, disenchantment and disillusion.
“Gainful” employment
It would not be hyperbole for me to say that I’d gladly switch places with my friend who got laid off six months ago and has remained unemployed ever since. True, I have an office to go to every morning, but I’m convinced I’m mortgaging my sanity, my life doing it. True, I get my salary every month, but at what cost? It is often said that men, more so than women, are intrinsically wired towards seeking satisfaction with their professional lives. That regardless of how many mouths they have to feed, men feel the urge to be gainfully employed. But what is often lost here is the import of the term “gain”, for not all people can be productive in all categories of employment. A nuanced understanding of the statement leads to fundamental questions on the definition, nature and measure of “gain”. Gain, as a consequence of effort, can only be adduced to if that consequence is beneficial to something or someone of relevance to the person in question – himself, for example. To be gainfully employed, an employee must feel, and be seen to feel, that that employment is contributing certain positive values to his life – values that he would not otherwise have accrued in the natural course of life. Such values could be one of many – wealth, health, knowledge, skills or character development. An employment that does not contribute meaningfully to any of these facets of life could not be said to be gainful employment. On the other hand, there can also be instances of lossy employment – the loss here being one or many of the attributes listed above. Trading time, energy, capacity, character and psychological stability for the only incentive of a monthly paycheck can hardly be an example of gainful employment. Indeed, what is the point of building a bank account if the builder of that account enters a state of disillusion and depression in the process of building it?
The fulfilment of employment
In order to truly evaluate the “gain” accrued from a particular employment, one must consider the non-monetary, intangible consequences of the same. Does the employment make you happy? Does it make you want to go back to work every day? Does it mould your character as a wholesome person? Does it add value, add meaning to your life? Honest answers to these questions would immediately divulge your true emotions vis-a-vis your employment. The question to then ask is, is the paycheck worth the trouble? Or would you rather do something else with your time, your energies, your skills and your talents that would help you gain knowledge, gain character and be more meaningful to you, to the people around you? For, every person has a higher calling, a true purpose to life, has a talent that will facilitate reaching that calling – all one needs to do is find out what that calling is, analyse it, acknowledge it and work towards it. The rewards of doing so will be multi-dimensional: it will enrich you professionally and personally, as an employer and employee, as a friend and a foe, it will enrich you as a complete human being.
The fear of failure
The key to success lies in interest – when you feel the interest from within to achieve something, you will find, or make, the tools from without to achieve it. But absence of interest, and often times active disinterest, in doing whatever it is that one has been doing without much reward are unlikely to lead to emotional fulfilment purely by the application of extra effort. It is true that norms, trends and pressures in society mean one is expected to find a steady job and to hold on to it. Slogans of finding life’s purpose and working towards those are often dismissed as fanciful whims and cerebral loose talk. More often than not, these fears of failure are founded on the fundamental human emotion of fear of the unknown, of resistance to change, of inertia. It is often forgotten that the limits of human endurance are much higher than popularly portrayed. Do we not regularly hear of achievers who overcome incredible odds to achieve what they set out to, of survivors who manage to stay alive days and weeks after they were presumed dead in the coldest waters of the deepest oceans? It needs to be understood that the human spirit is incredibly resilient, when one path is blocked it will find, or hack, a hundred others to get to its destination. Indeed, it is rightly said that necessity is the mother of invention. And I intend to apply it in my life.
