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

Just look at the number of flags / stars you have Gemini - you have struck a chord with an awful lot of people with your post!

We are born onto this beautiful diverse planet - hurtling through space. We are told that we are the only developed life forms around, any number of events could wipe us out at any time - What are the chances? what is our purpose?
We have no time to consider this, appreciate it - as we have fed into a education system which purely teaches us how to pass exams so that we can get qualifications to get a job ...so that we can live and perpetuate a system which is corrupt to the core. It is madness!

Unfortunately only the very lucky or very canny escape the madness (unless you are born into an elite dynasty)

I always wonder what would an advanced alien species say if they could see what we are, and what we do with our time? we must resemble a bunch of mindless ants - with the hidden "queens" getting fatter.

Global rule and technologies that could provide an equality of standards of living across the globe are corrupted, buried or used for exclusive financial gain, capitalism has gone from being a tool to guide our society into an unbridled beast that rules all aspects of our society and even our morality.

Something is definately wrong! many of us are aware of it - thanks for your post

You are right in that such long hours are not natural.
Nomadic tribes only 'worked' on average about four hours a day. The rest was spent in leisure activities.

You say you are good at your job but do you 'like' your job?

HERE IS YOUR ANSWER; whether you like work or not.

Stop whining and Go to work for 40 hours a week hate it or love it and ENJOY the heck out of the rest of your 128 hours left in the week...I also recommend finding a good Church.

if you can't beat em... join em !

trying to figure out how to do just that without paying taxes is the real trick

there is no way around the fact that if you want to get ahead i this world you have to lie, cheat and downright steal from others no matter what the scam may be.

thankfully my trade is providing me escape, and it feels damn good...

reply to post by GeminiSky


" Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy # we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.."

~a tyler durden quote for ya

reply to post by GeminiSky


Read Daniel H Pink's recent book called "Drive". He is a Lawyer who researched and found out that humans have a "natural drive" to "experience the high of flow" by actually working.

If you decided not to work, you would want to "do something or anything" because you as a human, have a natural drive to "use the skills and knowledge that you have as a human" to create.

He also discussed in the book that "Management" is a recent "technological tool" that was not around since the early 1900s, and that the problem with people "not wanting to work" like yourself, are not upset with having to work, but the idea that "you hate have to do things the way your manager wants things to be done". Whether this refers to the manager requiring you to come into the office certain days, or hours, or whether he wants you to "perform the job duties this way or that way." People want "autonomy" to do the job the way they want to do it. Not do it because "that is the way the team wants you to do it". YOU WOULD WANT TO WORK 24 HOURS SEVEN DAYS A WEEK IF YOU BOSS SAID "NOW YOU DO NOT HAVE TO REPORT TO ANYONE OR WORRY ABOUT ANYONE DISAGREEING HOW THE WORK SHOULD BE DONE SO DO THE JOB HOW EVER YOU WANT TO DO OR HOWEVER WAY YOU WANT TO DO IT".

Daniel H Pink says that people "naturally" want to USE THE TOOLS AND SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE because if you sat on your ass all day, you would go insane and say eventually "I'm better than this" and "I can be more productive" that this.

He said the other drives are "to be part of a team" but yet at the same time have complete "autonomy". YOU ALSO EXPERIENCE THE HIGH OF FLOW WHEN YOU ARE "IN THE ZONE" OF USING YOUR SKILLS AT THE PERFECT LEVEL THAT IS NOT TOO COMPLICATED FOR YOUR SKILLS AND ALSO YOU WANT TO AVOID JOBS THAT IS BELOW YOUR LEVEL OF SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE AND TALENTS.

The technological tool of Management is no different than the this new technology thing called a calculator or a pencil or a computer. Management is old and should be upgraded to AUTONOMY. Management as a technology is outdated and no longer works in the business model of the current day and age.

I feel the same way you do. I don't plan on paying back my student loans because my college degree can't even land me a minimum wage job. The way our government has screwed up this economy, I don't owe them anything. I have already toiled throughout college for nothing.

reply to post by GeminiSky


Alan Watts once referred to this as "A great and dreadful hoax perpetrated on the people." Simply because they've made you miss everything life has to offer. Personally I believe it is part of a system to keep humanity complacent and pre-occupied, so they stay out of the affairs of the powerful elite, in addition to maximizing profits. As to the last few posters claiming that this is NOT un-natural, let me make a case:

Natural:
You make all of your clothes, your home, your farmland, your tools, you know the area you live in down to the most precise details(of course you need to since your livelyhood depends on it.), life is more valued, and as a result you become and feel productive, because to be productive, you must PRODUCE something of value to yourself. Your grow mentally, physically, and spiritually being connected to the world around you and your family.

Unnatural:
You DONT make your own clothes, home, tools, or anything for that matter, except maybe a car battery cathode perhaps all day, you have no idea what your community truly looks like,for you spend all of your time either at work, or at a bar drinking away your stress, or maybe perhaps smoking weed in your little cot. You are not surrounded by nature, but rather by a concrete jungle where you are exposed to a barrage of constant environmental stresses to your body and mind. As a result of THIS, you do NOT feel productive, because you produce nothing of value to yourself, except for money which was placed as valuable by the ELITE, NOT YOU. And overtime, living this way makes you shrink mentally, physically, and spiritually since you are disconnected from your world AS WELL as your family.

Seriously, Thinking that way is merely a sign of complacency and slavery, since the world has you believing that money is worth something. As Peter Joseph once said "PHYSICAL SLAVERY means you work so that the master feeds and houses you, whereby ECONOMIC SLAVERY means you work to feed and house yourselves.

-Ewok

Work is natural, but the system in which we work is not. The system imprisons us in an endless routine in which we perform tasks that adds nothing positive to humanity.

Most of the time, the job that we occupy does not contribute to the common good. Money is the priority. Profit, profit, profit ...

I want to live in a society where work does not occupy the majority of our time. A Society where what we produce is quality and really useful and necessary (no wastage of resource). A society where speculators, Wall Street and the mega banks and other corporations do not exist.

A society where we can go to school and learn for free.

Originally posted by Acid_Burn2009
For those that answered yes to the OP...

Well, I venture to say you are all younger?
You want everything given to you without you having to shed one drop of sweat. If you want anything, you have to work for it.

Jeez, if people would have taken your stance hundreds of years ago (longer as well) then people would have frozen to death and/or starved to death.

Plain and simple laziness. You want it all but don't want to exert an energy to get it. You expect things to be handed to you?

You completely missed the point OP was making. It's not about working for a living...it's that the type of work in our society feels un-natural.
from OP:

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.

Sitting behind a desk and making cold calls.... sitting in a factory pushing buttons, or trying to convince people all day to buy some useless product, these are all mundane tasks that we were not created (or evolved) to do.
However if you are one of the few that likes the current system, then by all means reap the rewards. But some of us are sick of it

Life in our society right now is like a merry-go-round. We go in circles all day. Were all moving but not actually going anywhere. We go up and down on pretty looking horses and golden carriages and all the while peaceful music is playing...all these glamorous attractions keep us enticed to stay on the ride. But occasionally we will capture a glimmer of -real life- outside the confines of the theme park, and through the context of art or beauty in nature we realize our true being; and for the first time in a long time we contemplate our lives outside the life of the theme park. We consider dismounting; but suddenly like lightening we are stricken by fear of the unknown. And we think about our comfortable, safe lives in this blissful ride of air-conditioned room with comfy seats. And so as soon as the thought arrived in our minds it is stolen away by something shinny in the confines of the ride and we are hooked again like fish. We are reeled in and starved of true oxygen...and we are fine with it because we are hypnotized by the juicy worm.

When we first saw the ride we thought 'Oooh shinny, this looks fun.' And it was labeled as 'The American Dream'. And that's all it is- a dream. Because when we finally wake up we will realize what a foolish thing it was to participate in this experiment.

reply to post by GeminiSky


I have to agree with you my man. It feels like everyday we're just "going through the motions". I'm not entirely sure if you're saying you'd like more money to do more of the things you'd enjoy, but you made a point of saying there's a guy who spends almost all of his time working and makes a decent amount of cash but does not spend it on huge houses or fancy cars. I'd say personally that yeah, I'd definitely like more money... A LOT more money but with that I'd like a lot of free time to do things with that money. Not just wake up, do the whole work routine, get home exhausted, sleep and do it again. It does feel like I've been programmed, rather, society by the looks of it as most people seem to be doing the same as me.

Good spot man

Originally posted by theprofessionalnyc
reply to post by GeminiSky

 

Read Daniel H Pink's recent book called "Drive". He is a Lawyer who researched and found out that humans have a "natural drive" to "experience the high of flow" by actually working.

yeah that's it... go out and buy you a book written by a Lawyer who achieves his high doing absolutely nothing except sticking it to others... makes you wonder how he found the time to write a book ?

sorry these people are barely human, for we like the hippies agree it'll be them fellas and the politicians who'll be swinging from a tree when jihad hits the fan mofo !

by a book written by a Mechanic

You will never experience satisfaction unless you do work of some sort- the Bible says work 6 days and take a day off to rest
I think God knows best dont you
follow your heart and develop your talents and dont get greedy for gain
.02
y

reply to post by GeminiSky


"Work", meaning the repetitive actions one does not for direct receipt of food, water and shelter, but rather for an abstract metaphor (money), is not natural any way that you slice it. In order to travel to other countries, go to bars and concerts, and the like, one must work in the contemporary sense, as the mere existence of flight, bars and concerts is inextricably tied to money. To not work for money is to obviate money. To obviate money is to allow total disintegration of the institutions that have sprung up around it.

In other words, money allows for a person to be a passive participant in activities - showing up haphazardly and receiving service that allows for the "fun" part to occur. Not having money means active participation (work) in the very goings-on that contribute to the fun that you and your new moneyless "co-workers" have upon all of your own creation of that fun (a festival, travel, etc.).

Money makes work one-sided, rather than what it should be: a context-based endeavor built on cooperation between the roles we currently know as "employee", "manager" and "customer".

reply to post by GeminiSky


I agree that it feels unnatural. Such long hours. My last corp. job was 10 hour days, rotating from am to pm (so no real sleep schedule) and I barely got one day off. Ok... Whatev.. Some people don't have jobs... BUT this was a tortilla factory, one giant oven... With no cooling system, in july/ august heat. I was appalled to find out OSHA has no laws (only 'guidelines', for working in the heat) and employers can ask for as much overtime as they want. I quit. I refuse to work my life away, and jeopardize my health for minimum wage. The bible says after the apocalypse it won't be like this. We will build our own houses and sleep in them, grow our own food and eat it... Right on... I can't wait. I don't mind working to live.. But living to work is not our duty.

I worked for at leat 23 years as an employee, then went self employed. About 4 years ago I tried to go back to full time employment and hated it but put that down to the fact that the boss was a bitch! then just a month ago I had to go back because of the effects of the recession in the UK and it never felt so unnatural, even though I love the job. It feels like I'm in prison, slavely, even though if I did it for myself it might feel good I doubt it. Odd!

I worked 2 years as a postal letter carrier. I was the youngest one in my post office out of 22. Out of those two years, there were maybe 6 weeks total that I didn't work more than 40 hours. I made good money, but had no time or energy to spend any of it.

I looked around at my co-workers and realized that none of them were happy. They stayed with the job because it paid well. I never wanted to be a letter carrier, I was just looking for an income.

I quit the job and moved out of my mom's house the next day. Using the money I had saved up, I did not work a single day for the next year and a half. It was incredible. I didn't have to answer to anybody. I was officially not part of the "rat race". I did as I pleased, when I pleased. Traveled, partied, had a taste of what it was like to live "free", or whatever I thought "free" was.

It ended the second half of 2009. The money ran out. I've been struggling to get by ever since. The same friends that were insanely jealous of my free time were now telling me how badly I messed up. I disagree. They have continued to work, they have continued to hate having to get up every day, they have continued to live only for the weekend where they ended up drinking too much and getting sick. I, on the other hand lived for every day. And I don't regret it for a second.

I agree with you. "Work" is unnatural. "Working for one's survival" is completely acceptable to me. It's the system that civilization has created that makes "survival" so utterly complex and redefined from "survival of the fittest" to "the rat race" and "the daily grind". I've at least gotten a taste of what it is to live without work. But unfortunately I had to work for it.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/cf34865d0b23.jpg[/atsimg]

oh no here's the feel guilty card... maybe some would get along with Slayer69 ?

makes me wonder why white man even came in the first place ? maybe they were aliens and from another planet...

for what it's worth I too am sorry... I am sorry Chief, and I just might be headed your way soon so I can live with ya's. Hope ya's got lots a peace pipes...

reply to post by Deaf Alien

everybody on here is not whitey ya know

Americans are made up of all races and nationalities in case it is not observable in your area ?

your racist ideals are no longer needed or welcomed in society

all am I, I am all...