Rethinking the Idea and Execution of Work

I woke up very early on Sunday, Mother's Day. It was 4:30 am to be precise. I was in the living room and reading the book, “The 4 Hour Workweek”. What I was reading about was the outsourcing of work and life.

I was raised to do my own work. A person who did not do their work was sloven and weak. That sort of person was exploiting other people. A man (or woman) took joy and pride in their work and what they did. My parents did not teach this approach to work. I was taught this by the culture when I was young. The media and books extolled the virtues of hard work. Work was to be hard, that was why they called it work. If it was worth doing then the pain to do it meant that the doer was engaged in the process. 

I learned in the book, “The 4 Hour Workweek”, that this does not have to be so. With some money, and not that much, I could outsource my work, life, responsibilities and perhaps even my personal life to a worker in India. 

In the book, “Money is My Friend”, I was told that people who are very successful do not see themselves as working hard. These people do not see what they make money at as work. They enjoy what they do. 

In the book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” I found that the virtue of who I am counts less than the ability to make a friend. Is it the making of a friend that I was taught not to admire and do, or is it the idea that I can, with will power and purpose, influence people to my way of thinking? This could be the scariest idea of them all. To have the power to make a friend and to control the thinking of the group.

I now have three ways to think about Work, Money and People. I was not taught to think and act this way. I look upon this as the person in the big city, in a place that they should not be at, and being told that it is OK to do things I was told not to. What is a poor boy to do?

What I am seeing is not a drug or a bad act. People, the rich and the leaders, have acted this way since the beginning of time. I am not a nineteen year old in the city. I many years of experience under my belt. 

There is always danger in a new thing. The new way to do things or places to go to goes against our Limbic Brain*. We have this wonderful basic system that helps us to stay alive and functional as a single person. The Limbic system gets in the way when a new process is introduced that we can use, that we need to use.

What to do? I am not at my home. I am at my mothers home in Alabama. It is much more relaxed in Alabama than in Atlanta. I slowed down and thinking and planning better. If I am to get myself to a place where I can make money, have more control and enjoy a life where I can setup the system then the way I have been living needs to be changed.

I plant the stake here and now for the change to a better life starts now.

* A complex system of nerves and networks in the brain, involving several areas near the edge of the cortex concerned with instinct and mood. It controls the basic emotions (fear, pleasure, anger) and drives (hunger, sex, dominance, care of offspring).  ORIGIN late 19th cent.: limbic from French limbique, from Latin limbus ‘edge.’