Phoning it in at work is bad for you in the long term. That’s not balance, it’s wasted years. Either find a way you can do meaningful work at work, leave to do your own thing, or leave to find more meaningful work. Just my opinion.
Spend your time on things that matter to you, and especially with people that you like and people that you love. All we really have is our memories anyway.
If you want to follow your dream, do that, but don't defraud others by taking money and not fulfilling your obligations. It doesn't mean you owe anyone your life but in most cases it means filling in the cracks, not letting things drop because 'it's not in your job description'. Nobody should suggest you owe them your life or unwavering loyalty. You are mowing a lawn - just make sure the grass is cut responsibly, and the home owner is something near satisfied.
Yes - there is a lot of variation in what 'obligation' means - and there are definitely questions about the nature of power in society and how surpluses are distributed, but at the end of the day, beyond very low paying work / unskilled labour, the system is fair by and large, to the extent that reality allows for that.
It's also understandable that people have a hard time finding their place in this system. Sometimes companies demand too much. Sometimes rewards are not commensurate. Sometimes we care too much. Sometimes we are compelled to care (medical services) which takes it's toll.
Some people have a natural affinity for a job, task or team, some want the burden of responsibility. Paradoxically, some don't stress about it.
And no system is ever perfect, not even close, and it will always be thus.
Let this sink in: "The Zen Buddhist way of "being" is an active, non-dual state of presence where ordinary actions—such as sitting, walking, eating, or working—are experienced directly without the barrier of ego, judgment, or conceptual overthinking". Powerful stuff.
About the 'systemic issues' - that's why you stay politically aware, and vote. That's your other 'job'.
I've got a fair number of recently-laid-off friends who are amazingly talented. I don't think the system is "by and large fair." You've just been lucky.
> Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.
This is not only offensive, but dehumanizing, reductive, and the co-opting of trauma in a hyperbolic way.
No one reading this is a fucking slave to their company. They may very well be in a third world country or a repressive regime; but, let’s be honest: those folks are not the intended audience here.
This is more of the, “quiet quitting trope,” rephrased in an objectively horrendous way.
I think most corporate unhappiness comes from the company’s board pressing down on the execs who in turn press down on the management (A good manager will keep you away from that bs). I have been at least two companies where the board decided to get involved in the day to day and it ends up where every decision must be approved by the board. For example, hiring a designer to design something and then the execs take the design all the way up to the board where they discuss how it should look before passing it back to the designer to change. Just fire your execs if you want to their job of running the company.
How is it "bad" for you? Make an argument that doesn’t simply devolve into vacuous platitudes and protestant work ethic nonsense.
This is silly. 90% of corporate work employing millions of ppl is not 'meaningful work'
Yes - there is a lot of variation in what 'obligation' means - and there are definitely questions about the nature of power in society and how surpluses are distributed, but at the end of the day, beyond very low paying work / unskilled labour, the system is fair by and large, to the extent that reality allows for that.
It's also understandable that people have a hard time finding their place in this system. Sometimes companies demand too much. Sometimes rewards are not commensurate. Sometimes we care too much. Sometimes we are compelled to care (medical services) which takes it's toll.
Some people have a natural affinity for a job, task or team, some want the burden of responsibility. Paradoxically, some don't stress about it.
And no system is ever perfect, not even close, and it will always be thus.
Let this sink in: "The Zen Buddhist way of "being" is an active, non-dual state of presence where ordinary actions—such as sitting, walking, eating, or working—are experienced directly without the barrier of ego, judgment, or conceptual overthinking". Powerful stuff.
About the 'systemic issues' - that's why you stay politically aware, and vote. That's your other 'job'.
This is not only offensive, but dehumanizing, reductive, and the co-opting of trauma in a hyperbolic way.
No one reading this is a fucking slave to their company. They may very well be in a third world country or a repressive regime; but, let’s be honest: those folks are not the intended audience here.
This is more of the, “quiet quitting trope,” rephrased in an objectively horrendous way.