Imagine if you will, a secret government organization that wanted to raise soldiers right from birth. Basically, after they somehow acquired the baby, there would be so much investment into that child before he could grow up and become a useful soldier. The government organization would have to educate the baby in all the various fields of knowledge they would wish him to have. They would also have to feed him everyday of his life, without any repayment, until the day he could work and produce returns for his masters. Lodging would also have to be provided; in order to make sure that their investment was protected from the elements. Furthermore, they would probably have to provide him with entertainment and leisure of some sort, for the human species cannot endure for very long without such sustenance.
Think about the above scenario for a moment. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Sounds like the movies, “Star Wars: Clone Wars” or “Soldier,” doesn’t it? Wait… it even sounds like slavery! Well, if you must know – it was just a story about you! That’s right, you. Each and every one of us who is working for someone else right now is pretty much being treated in the same way.
Do you think “your company” is paying you a fair wage? They have benefits, yadda, yadda, yadda?! Well, they are the ones that are benefiting and not you. It is very rare (although they do exist) for a company not to just use you like a slave. The situation is even worse in Asia, where workers work six or seven days a week and maybe 10 to 12 hours per day. Imagine the torture!
People like to think that they’re being paid “per hour” or are paid a “salary,” when in fact the truth is that the hour you just spent doing that report or making that sales presentation was the culmination of your entire life. Yep, “your company” is paying you peanuts to do something you spent a whole lifetime to learn. PEANUTS. And who knows? If you don’t meet their expectations, you’re out the door… and even if you do, they might boot you out anyway, because there’s another sap waiting in line to do what you do for half the pay! (Of course, he’s a sucker more than anyone else.)
The point here is not that you should demand more wages or stage protests over beef imports from the U.S. or cry for subsidies or do some other ridiculous, pointless, nutty thing. You should strike out on your own, doing something you love and benefiting from it. You shouldn’t turn over a large portion of your output to others – what you do should be totally for your own benefit and advantage.
I must address another point. Some of you may argue that part of our wages are used to pay for things that we need; such as food, clothing, cars, shelter, etc. Hahaha… do you think that it is only we who need the food that we put into our bodies? Food is fuel for our mind and bodies, and if you weren’t working such a stressful job with jerk co-workers – do you think you’d need ten cups of Starbucks coffee a day? I think not. Would you eat more if you were lounging under blue skies and on white sands, or would you eat more in a gray office in front of a droning computer terminal? The answer is obvious. Would you even need a car if you didn’t have to leave your family farm by the tropical seaside? Of course not!
So don’t be a sap and don’t get fooled. Your hourly pay probably really only contributes a small portion to what you need to get by (I’d estimate 20%); whereas the rest is for the benefit of the company (or for crap you don’t need). Why work your butt off developing the next BMW M3, just to buy an iPhone 2.0, when the guy developing the iPhone 2.0 is working his butt off to get your BMW M3? It all just doesn’t make sense… reduce your wants and reduce your stress. And most of all, don’t let “your company” take you for a ride.
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