Work & Self-Estrangement

I’m in the job market again. Looking for something I care about. Something I truly want to do.

My last couple jobs checked a few boxes (i.e., they were paying jobs) but were a couple of the worst I’ve ever had. Toxic atmospheres, poor pay, office politics and more…I, like most people, have had to deal with these while working.

However, my last two jobs in sales were perhaps the most damaging and disheartening.

I learned a lot. I learned how to overcome objectives, how to see through excuses and get to the heart of an issue and how to seek a mutually-beneficial end. These skills will serve my future well, I’m sure, and I’m thankful for that.

However, in sales, you’re only worthy if you’re producing. It doesn’t matter how hard you try. It doesn’t matter how much work you put in to learn. It doesn’t matter what demons may be ravishing your personal life. In sales, you need to produce. Not only that, when you’re a member of a team whose leader is more worried about his or her own legacy above all else, you become nothing more than a cog in someone else’s dream. The dead weight must be cut off, if you have one bad week. Or day. Or even one bad interaction.

Sure, a job is a job. You’re paid to do a job, and if you don’t do it, you shouldn’t be there. You need to fulfill your duties

But what happens when those duties don’t fulfill you? What happens when all the of gifts, the meaningless awards and accolades, the status and praise, all wash away? You’re cast out for not producing. You’re done. And all of those things you got along the way mean nothing, and you finally see that they never really did.

This is my latest struggle. For all the ridicule that Karl Marx (rightfully) deserves, as his prescriptive fixes to society’s woes are, in my opinion, a total sham, his descriptive insights can be no more accurate. Take, for example, his theory of self-estrangement. This concept pontificates that the modern work place estranges humankind from its essence. That is to say, a workplace can remove a man from his self-discovery, his manifestation, his spirituality. And truthfully, in my opinion, these words are more true now than ever.

Our modern age has brought great progress and innovation, but also many problems. We do not live in a society that focuses on true happiness. We are not offered work that is conducive to happiness. In fact, so much of our society’s “work” could be considered draining or life-taking. This isn’t just your average burnout. This is an inability to attain fulfillment or any sense of purpose from the work we do to survive.

And immediately, I want to address a couple of counterarguments. Of course, some people like their jobs. That’s great for them, I’m truly happy that they have a profession that brings them joy and purpose. This isn’t applicable to everyone. Of course, people need a job even if it doesn’t bring them happiness. A friend of mine (a retired school teacher) said she chose her profession not because she loved it but because it enabled her to do what she did love. Being a school teacher allowed her to be home when her kids were home, to take regular breaks throughout the year and spend time with her kids, to give herself something to do when her kids weren’t around. She didn’t love the work, and it was a lot of work, but it enabled her to do what it was she actually wanted to do. And, again, that’s fine. Some people can be the type to clock in and clock out, to show up, do the work and then go home. I, personally, can’t. I crave the deeper meaning to everything I do. Life is short enough, I don’t want to spend 1/3 of it doing something I hate. And, lastly, I’m aware we can pick our jobs. If I’m not fulfilled at one job, I can get another. This is somewhat true and, up until recently, was the counterargument I put forward most often. As I said earlier in this piece, I’ve had many jobs. Some I liked, some I didn’t. But none of them fulfilled me in the deeper sense that I’m seeking. We all need to work to survive, this is true. However, we only have so much choice in where and how we work.

I have many choices. I’m white, educated and from a gifted family. Others who lack that education and privilege don’t have as many choices. But even those discrepancies aside, there is a difference between life-taking work and life-giving work. The work that is essential to life wouldn’t necessarily extend beyond a small farming community. The friends and family, the food, the work…all that is essential to happiness is right there. No meaningless office job, no office politics, no strangers and cubicles, no menial nonsense that means nothing to you. Just a community of those that love and care for each other doing the life-giving work that is essential to their livelihoods and well-being.

But even that can’t be that simple, not in the society we live in. I can’t just walk into the woods and claim a swath a land as my own or place it under the ownership of a cooperation. And even if I could, the regulation, red-tape and taxation would prohibit growth. It would be bound to fail. Society wouldn’t let me off of the hamster wheel.

And so, I’m trying to think of a way to work within this system for now. I’d love to think I can change something, but I’m not entirely sure I can. American society seems hellbent on keeping life the same, regardless of how miserable it makes people. Sure, we have technology that connects us with infinite knowledge and data. However, it also continues to spur hatred, manipulation and mental illness. Sure, we live in a society seeping with innovation and genius. However, we also live in a society that sells $9 pizza lanyards, useless household knick-knacks and invasive technology with little to no benefit. (Sidebar: People are allowed to like things. I don’t mean to be overly critical. However, it gets to a point where you walk into a store and you can’t help but question some of the products on the shelves. At the end of the day, so much of it is about consumerism. That cat timer and dog salt-n-pepper shaker made by slave children in Vietnam only exists so you’ll buy it and someone else will make money on it. It doesn’t really serve a higher purpose beyond that. And I’m a victim of this, too. I recently ordered an Alexa-enabled microwave. It actually takes more time for me to ask Alexa to turn the microwave on for 2 minutes than it does to press the buttons myself. This is technology that exists purely for flash, not to make our lives easier.) Sure, we live in a society where people have the means to pursue artistic interests and create beautiful music and paintings. However, some of the most powerful music doesn’t come from the over-commercialized noise at Capitol Records; it comes from independent artists, who work 60 works a week in the LA area so they can squeeze in some time at a recording studio to create a self-produced EP.

The work that means the most to us as human beings shouldn’t be an after-thought. It shouldn’t be the thing we do when we have time. It should be THE thing we do because we love it. This is not some communist manifesto for millennials or an essay on why “society sucks”. This is raising an issue near and dear to my heart; that is, we need to start focusing on happiness. And not the happiness that advertisers promise us if we can buy this phone and wear this shirt. I’m talking about the happiness that comes from those that love us and work that fulfills us. Society doesn’t need to be torn down for this to happen. I just want the choice. Those that like their lives and their paychecks can continue to live that way. I just want to be free from the money and consumerism, to do that work that means something to me. Unfortunately for me, I’m still trying to figure out what that is and how I can make it work.