I think about work a lot.
Like, obsession-level amounts.
I don’t do this because I’m obsessed about “work,” though — quite the opposite, in fact.
I think about work all the time because what I ACTUALLY care about is improving the quality of human lives at scale, and work (I am using this word synonymously with “business” in this case) is the current organizing story of life.
Think about it — more than any other single factor, where you work determines…
- Where you live (especially if CEOs get their way)
- The people you will see the most
- The kind of shelter you can afford
- The quality of food you can afford
- The amount of discretionary income you will have
- The amount of free time you’ll have
- In the U.S., whether you have health care or not
This thing we call “work” is the single determining factor for the quality of your entire life.
I will say: this might not actually be bad IF we had a more healthy organizing story that governed the way we work.
But right now, the governing story of work is one of consumption, profit, and consumerism. It’s an endless race to “more” — more money, more stuff, more money, more extraction of resources, more money, more externalization of costs, more… did I say money?
Yeah, mostly it’s “more money.”
As far as I can tell, “more money” is not positively correlated with things like wisdom, contentment, or happiness. And before you leave me comments about needing “enough to survive,” I agree, and please note — you’re talking about “enough” not “more.”
“More” is insatiable. It, by definition, will never get enough.
So we are left with an organizing story of life that is fundamentally ignominious, not to mention misaligned with some pretty basic biological principles (which strive for homeostasis and balance within the system).
And when the story is corrupted in this way, it rots the system all the way down.
If you will, imagine for a moment with me that the story was something else. “Like what?” you might ask. I think there are quite a few things that would serve as a better organizing story than “more money.”
Consider if the “point of it all” was more…
- Exploration
- Learning
- Beautification
- Connection
- Love
Pick your favorite!
Doesn’t that just feel better?
Like deeply, morally, spiritually better?
My friends, we are in a moment in history where we are shifting from old systems to new. We have the opportunity to reimagine and to rebuild. The old (i.e. current) ways of business will continue to break, because they are fundamentally misaligned with much-older universal laws.
What will emerge in place of these old systems?
Well, that depends on the new story we choose.