Do you feel like Having to Work is un-natural?

Can't remember who said it but there's a saying; do something you love and you'll never work a day in your life. There is a lot of truth to that.

=Ax

Originally posted by GeminiSky


Seriously guys, I just dont feel human having to work for a living so that I can afford food, housing, a car and clothes. I feel that if instead of that I was forced to hunt, construct shelter, and defend my family that I would do this gladly and not feel as if I was "working" for a living.

Thoughts?

---GeminiSky

edit on 11-2-2011 by GeminiSky because: Added additional content to summarize my thoughts.

Firstly, your questions/statements are relying on a standardized concept of "Natural". What do you define as "Natural"? It could be said that everything is natural, because the natural laws of the universe allowed it to happen, and is the way it is. It could refer to a nomadic/hunter/gather lifestyle. Natural is a relative term when used in this context, and one you seem to attribute as being a good thing.

I'm in no way trying to argue or deny you, but rather point out the flaw in what you are asking.

I personally feel I would be a much happier (If not more natural) human living off the land and giving up all the unnecessary novelties of the industrial world. That is the best answer I can offer.

reply to post by GeminiSky


It's as simple as this:

Work that keeps you alive is natural.
Work that keeps you entertained is natural.
Excessive amounts of work forced upon you is unnatural.

It would blow my mind if a man from a few thousands years ago spent 5 days a week, 8-10 hours a day, working on crap that he doesn't even enjoy. It's nothing but slavery in my eyes. It's that simple, and I refuse to be apart of it, I'll become a homeless person before I waste my life on that bull.

reply to post by GeminiSky


my hopes are that the world will improve, but one thing is clear... if you think of it from gods view, we are here to protect earth, and to better ourselves, while these things appear far off, one day we will succeed in becoming what we are meant to do.

OP you're lucky, you have the world by the balls. Young, dumb and full of some is a great time in life (kidding!). You aren't choked out by wife/mortgage/children yet. And the new car is a great learning experience. We live, we learn. Your comment about things losing their luster after the new wears off... man, some people -never- learn that lesson, and spend their lives surrounding themselves with fleeting, temporary happiness from the local Mall. So sad.

You don't have to be a lifelong wageslave. If you take the right steps now you can set yourself up to be doing well later. You're right, working your life away sucks. The USA way is not 'the way' of the world.

There are probably plenty of old farts like me that have been there done that and we could share what we know, if thats what you want. You are awake and aware of what's what and you didn't become a debt-ridden college waste; this is good. If you want some ideas on how I'd do it if we could trade places, I'll tell you some of what you might know when you're my age.

side note: there are a big boatload of college students that only go to college because mom & dad insist= college waste; plenty of college grads that never have a job in the career field of their study = college waste; plenty of college grads that graduated at the bottom of the pile= college waste. I expanded on my remark because I don't want to be misunderstood. Education is excellent, but I've seen the wastepile as well. We've all met idiots with college degrees.

I know how you feel. Most jobs today feel "unnatural" because at the end of the day you feel no accomplishment. I think humans were meant to be self sustainable, meaning we should be working to provide the basics in life: food, water, shelter, clothing. Instead, we go work for a company to get money to buy the necessities plus the material items. If you have ever watched shows on Discovery that show tribes in the jungles still living a lifestyle that basically consists of working to eat each day. To me, those people seem pretty content. Guess it really is subjective.

reply to post by LargeFries


You said it best, choked out by wife, kids mortgage. For all those people reading this who haven't fallen into that death trap, RUN!!

Originally posted by LargeFries
OP you're lucky, you have the world by the balls. Young, dumb and full of some is a great time in life (kidding!). You aren't choked out by wife/mortgage/children yet. And the new car is a great learning experience. We live, we learn. Your comment about things losing their luster after the new wears off... man, some people -never- learn that lesson, and spend their lives surrounding themselves with fleeting, temporary happiness from the local Mall. So sad.

You don't have to be a lifelong wageslave. If you take the right steps now you can set yourself up to be doing well later. You're right, working your life away sucks. The USA way is not 'the way' of the world.

There are probably plenty of old farts like me that have been there done that and we could share what we know, if thats what you want. You are awake and aware of what's what and you didn't become a debt-ridden college waste; this is good. If you want some ideas on how I'd do it if we could trade places, I'll tell you some of what you might know when you're my age.

side note: there are a big boatload of college students that only go to college because mom & dad insist= college waste; plenty of college grads that never have a job in the career field of their study = college waste; plenty of college grads that graduated at the bottom of the pile= college waste. I expanded on my remark because I don't want to be misunderstood. Education is excellent, but I've seen the wastepile as well. We've all met idiots with college degrees.

You know what's funny... if you are paying for college but REALLY REALLY suck at actual learning, you can still get a degree. Why? Because you are paying for it. If people were paying out of pocket for junior high, do you think there would be as many failures there? No. Why?... because of money. I have not looked at statistics but do you think private schools are full of failure. I highly doubt it. I would bet money that the statistic of failure is much lower in private school even taking away the smaller class sizes and special tutoring and all that.... if the schooling was exactly the same, people would still fail less... because in private schools it is business. If your child failed the 7th in private school despite you thinking your own child tried (and parents are biased about their children a lot of the time) would you send the kid back next year? DOUBTFULLY!

Sure you can suck at college so bad you wind up screwed out of degree but do you think it happens as often as it does to those who are not paying for school? I think most would agree it's all about the money.

Here's what really sucks. You ARE paying for public schooling but it's indirect and impersonal.

Have I known idiots with college degrees? ABSOLUTELY!

"money makes the world go around"

reply to post by GeminiSky


Depends what type of work you do I spose...

I work in the envrionmental industry and I love my work. I litterally can't wait to get to work eadch day and go out on site and clean up the mess other humans make of our natural resources.

It also pays well.. !!

I am also moving on to other areas within my cosen field (ie Firefighting/Fire Management), this is very rewarding work and has a positive outcome in terms of me feeling I have achieved something worthwhile.

So Like I said, I spose it all depends on what you do...

Originally posted by ghostsoldier78
I would much rather work for myself, hunting/fishing/gardening for my food and making everything that I needed. but the only way that will work is if you have a "village" of sorts where everyone did this. So anyone on here want to start a tribe?

edit on 12-2-2011 by ghostsoldier78 because: (no reason given)

Let's do it. We can call it ATS Land. The motto is Denying Establishment. As there will be no institutions, governments, or anything such as. It will be simple like minded people living near each other, but not too close. All in favor, say "I" !

There are lots of generalities being thrown about like "work is good for the spirit, you must be a loser for not wanting to work, blah blah blah." Sure, working is what people do, but who's to say that you must feel guilty for not wanting to do 70 hours a week in the corporate meatgrinder? Is that really the only work that is available?

There are people saying that the US economy is basically being reshaped into kind of a wonderland catering to trustfund babies. That is one of the reasons why factories, etc. were being shut down a few decades ago -- trustfund babies don't buy compact sedans.

What would be great is if they reduced working hours so that more employees would be hired, but there are lots of complicated issues such as trade secrets and employee retention. It used to be that you could quit your job at noon and find another one the same day, but now jobs such as customer service require more skill and more exposure to the company's internal mechanics. Losing employees is too much of a gambit, so they will work one committed employee to death rather than hire two or three who can't even remember the company's name.

I'm in full agreement with the OP, and can just say, work to live, not live to work.

and if you can work out how to work doing something you love to do, or at least if not something you enjoy, then not have to work very hard, jackpot

reply to post by KamiKazeKenji


Great post- don't forget this verse

Genesis 2:15 (Young's Literal Translation)

15And Jehovah God taketh the man, and causeth him to rest in the garden of Eden, to serve it, and to keep it.

So before the fall, Adam's job was to take care of the garden. His other duties: rest, be with God, don't eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, be fruitful, and multiply.

These are the things we were created for. Unfortunately sin messed everything up

another option, find what you enjoy, use it to work for yourself, like if you really enjoy surfing, look into starting a business, just for an extremely basic example


for other replies, my belief is you don't need an 8+ hour work day slaving for an idiot with money, and it doesn't have to take a complete rejection of modern technology and living in a tribe either, learn how to use the tech we have in the world to meet your needs, like to aid growing food, etc, and you'd be set on that end of things

Originally posted by NoHierarchy

Originally posted by streetspirit
This is stupid.

I've been working since I was 13 years old, after school on weekend, full-time in the summers, and I'm 21 now. I've always moved up in the companies I've worked for, and I've never felt like a slave, with having to pay my own rent, groceries, bills and all that.

People are only slaves, if they allow themselves to be that way. Seriously if you don't like where your at in life, don't go blaming the system because your life sucks, do something about it. Like getting an education and furthering your career.

I could be still working #ty blue collar jobs, but I'm not anymore I decided to get an education and I'm on my way to making a living off the things that I love to do.

No one is forcing anyone to be a "slave" at least not here in Canada.

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Morpheus: The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.



BTW i like this quote you posted

"Of course when the people of your culture look at tribal peoples, they don't see wealth of any kind, they see poverty. This is understandable, since the only kind of wealth they recognize is the kind that can be locked up, and tribal peoples are not much interested in that kind."
- Daniel Quinn, My Ishmael

reply to post by freedish


that is exactly the words I was thinking of when I made my comment...

I still say manual laborers 'work' everything else is befitting of the title, but there are certain things like being a carpenter that are special, it's a skilled-trade.

reply to post by Frogs


Id help him if he helped me

Animals need to "work" to get what they need to live. They have adapted specific tools with which to accomplish this. Long necks. Long beaks. Sharp claws. Snouts. Fins. Several rows of teeth. Bioluminescent attractors. You name it, Nature has provided her flora and fauna with the tools necessary to EAT and LIVE and THRIVE.

Man... However, is different. We have no sharp claws or glowing appendages or plated armor or fins. None of these things occurs on our bodies naturally. Our biggest tool is our brain. Completely unseen from the outside, our brain is our biggest advantage.

Using our brains, over the course of hundreds of thousands of years, we learned that we could replicate the advantages of the animals by CREATING our own advantages. We FASHIONED armor and weapons from our environment. Over the course of several more hundreds of thousands of years, we learned that we could use a currency to allow for the specialization of talent. An artist no longer had to hunt to eat, nor did a jewelry maker, tailor or scribe, etc. People could do what they did best without having to hunt, kill and clean their food.

The saying about doing what you LOVE and getting paid for it is not WORK is very true. But, how many of us really get to do what we love? Very few.

reply to post by Acid_Burn2009


ofcorse the older generation's did not moan as much and worked harder, there was more of the overall wealth available to them and therefore more oportunities, also the past generations were not competing directly with other countries like the modern generations do, imagine learning a skill such as IT only to find out all the jobs get outsourced to China or India or a machine and you will not be hired because you are too expensive in comparrison, you can't lower your price because you still have to pay the living costs of your area. In fact the new generations should be mad, mad that the older generations own 2 houses, a holiday home, 2 cars and a boat while they can work for most of their life just to afford a deposit on a house. The older generations did have to work hard - but their hard work had alot more chance of paying off. Older people seem ignorant to the fact it is just going to get harder and harder, the system does reset itself (when governments do not bail out the ones that failed) but it takes alot longer to reset if nobody gets mad because they are being told over and over they are just lazy and need to work harder.

Perhaps, just maybe the young generations see the world for what it is, they see how little oportunity is still available and decide to no longer play the game of monopoly to win - they instead choose to enjoy their life and take the handouts from the previous generations because chances are they would be struggling to stay afloat anyway while working their life away.
The older generations would rather call the new generations lazy than accept the fact the middle class is disappearing

83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
• 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
• 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
• 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
• For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
• As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
• In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.
• The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
• or the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
• This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
• The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.

Source

The system is designed this way - it is designed for the rich to get richer and all of the wealth to eventually end up in the hands of those up the top. I know the not all from previous generations are not the one's up the top of this pyramid scheme and suffer the same problems as young generations but to continue blaming the younger generations as being lazy is a cop out - these days 2 paycheques are needed for things that not long ago required 1 paycheque. I think the older generations are lazy (not all ofcorse) - too lazy to understand the design of the system and how it is effecting their children and how it is going to effect their children's, children's, children. The system need's to collapse and it only collapses once people get mad, so stop giving your kid's such a hard time (not saying give them everything on a silver plate) but get off their back and provide them with oportunites not handouts.

Originally posted by GeminiSky

How in the world am I supposed to live my life when I get home late, only have a few hours for myself to eat, wash up, and before I know it Im falling asleep only to repeat the process all over again the next day.

Today I read a point of view about working from a poster on GLP, this is what he wrote:

How often does it happen. Someone gets a job at a factory etc and they are excited that they have a job. They slowly become stagnant about finding a better job. The Monday after xmas they wake up for work. Their birthday they work. Halloween they work. Best friends wedding cant afford, gotta work. Daughters birth, missed it had to work. No walking along the top of a mountain looking down the beautiful landscapes. Meeting people at a bar at midnight in another country.

No going to the big rock concert in the big city. No late night walks through the countryside on a summer night gettin high with a friend/friends. Life spent at work. Every day. Gotta work work work. We all think we're special. Are we special after 30 years of working at some factory that makes spark plugs. I want to be free. I'm 29 years old and im sick of working my ass off just to afford food apt and a car and 1 coat and a few outfits. I'm starting to get paranoid thoughts that I will never get to meet strangers and have a blast in Europe at midnite.

I wont get to walk on the top of a mountain with my wife in Tibet. I wont get to peacefully relax in New Zealand. Or hang out at a coffee shop in the Netherlands. it's wake up Monday morning and time for work. And it doesnt stop until you're old and frail with wasted vitality.

Source

---GeminiSky

edit on 11-2-2011 by GeminiSky because: Added additional content to summarize my thoughts.

Are you serious?
Who does that stuff?
CERTAINLY NOBODY IN THE AMERICAN PROTECTORATES DOES THAT STUFF.
That's strictly an Americans life...OOPS
I mean it USED to be!

Welcome to HELL mate.

Now you are down here with the rest of us.
Aren't you happy now you live in the great land that created the Megacorporations, the BIG banks, the BIG army and the BIG egos?
You're not supposed to start bombing any banks or megacorporations HQ's or revolt to the streets just to make a point are you? Like bringing that Monster down, you people had helped been created. I thought that you wouldn't... So, then enjoy the looooooong ride along with the rest of us.