BY SOFO ARCHON
If you take a clear look around, you’ll see that most people are slaves—or, more precisely, wage slaves. Day in and day out, they sell at least half of their waking hours to others, expending most of their physical and mental energy as employees, just to earn a salary in return. And although almost no one actually enjoys this, it’s considered normal in our culture.
Obviously, we need food and water to survive, as well as shelter and the means to provide ourselves and our families with goods that make life comfortable. How do we acquire these things? Everyone knows the answer: by exchanging them for money. In our culture, money is the tool that allows us to satisfy our basic needs. In other words, without money, we can’t “earn a living.” I, for example, can’t simply express myself through my writings or paintings—two of my biggest passions—unless I can support myself financially. Although for several years now I’ve managed to earn what some call “passive income,” mainly from work I love, my journey wasn’t easy at the start.
Not long ago, I was a wage slave myself, working as a video editor for corporate TV—a job I hated, given how much I despised its deceptive nature (there are other reasons I dislike mainstream TV, but that’s for another article). I was grateful, however, to have work and earn a salary, fully aware of how many people in the world struggle to survive. My situation was difficult, but still relatively good compared to the one billions of people face.
During that period, I was wasting seven hours a day, six days a week, in front of a computer screen, yet I would go home every night and pour the rest of my energy into this blog. Most of the time, my eyes were red and my head felt heavy, but working on my blog was a must—not because anyone forced me, but because I knew how much joy it brought into my life. It was something I loved doing (and still do), and my aim was to do it as much—and as well—as I could.
To avoid any misunderstanding, I don’t mean to say that working hard at what you love will necessarily bring financial freedom. Countless people have dedicated their entire lives to their passions but never saw a monetary reward. A good example is Van Gogh, who created an enormous number of incredible paintings but, as far as I’ve heard, couldn’t sell a single one while he was alive—except for one that his younger brother secretly bought to help him feel less like a failure. Now, so many years after his death, he is recognized as an artistic genius, and his paintings sell for tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars.
So what’s my point? By doing what you love, you can derive immense joy and fulfillment, and even if you never earn money from it, it’s still worth pursuing. Of course, while doing so, you still need to earn an income—unless you’re willing to starve or have someone else support you financially. You need to find a job or create one if necessary.
The question is: what’s the best occupational choice one can make? In my view, it’s to engage in work that aligns as closely as possible with your interests and talents while contributing something positive to the world. That’s certainly difficult to achieve in our inhumane economic system, but it’s worth striving for, no matter the outcome. Even if you can’t fully achieve it and find yourself struggling as a wage slave, do your best to spend your free time on what brings you fulfillment—ideally in a way that also benefits others. Who knows? If you create and offer something valuable to the world, people might recognize your gift and show their appreciation—sometimes even with money.
In my case, this is exactly what happened. Readers I’ve never met decide to donate part of their income to support my work. Of course, I never write with the intention of receiving an external reward. To me, the very process of writing is rewarding in itself, but I have to admit it feels nice when I receive thank-you messages from readers or when they express their gratitude through a donation.
The problem arises when someone does something solely because they expect a reward. Not that it’s inherently wrong to expect one, but the universe doesn’t seem to work that way. If what you’re putting out into the world isn’t coming from the heart, people will sooner or later recognize it and may not be willing to support your work. On the other hand, if your work comes from a place of unconditional love, it’s very likely you’ll receive love in return, in one form or another.
Having said that, I’d like to point out that if we truly want to end wage slavery and reclaim our freedom to pursue our true interests, it’s crucial to change the very foundations of our economic system—a system that forces us to spend most of our lives doing work we don’t enjoy or even hate, something rarely addressed in self-help circles. Coaches and mentors often talk about “following our purpose” regardless of the conditions we find ourselves in, but when the economic structure of our society constantly and inevitably places obstacles in our path to prosperity and contentment, perhaps the better approach is to change the system itself.
Consider this: we possess the scientific knowledge and technological means to create a world of abundance, where everyone could have enough to satisfy their needs. If only we put our knowledge into practice, imagine how much freer we’d be to do what we enjoy. The problem is that most of us don’t believe this is feasible—we’ve been programmed to think that happiness, like money, is scarce, and therefore not everyone can fully cherish life. Unsurprisingly, we find ourselves trapped in a constant struggle, competing and deceiving one another, doing work we don’t care about, and engaging in tasks that are detrimental to our well-being.
It’s time to rethink the way we live and begin making concrete changes on both a personal and systemic level. It’s time to stop wasting our energy on things that cause needless conflict and suffering, and instead focus on creating and offering gifts of love that help make the world a more beautiful place.
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