The lie of the monthly salary
Praise of Uncertainty — Part 1
“You are thinking too much!” — This is what I have been told since I remember something about myself. For years I have been trying to understand what was wrong with “thinking too much”, and what “too much” means.
Then in 2016 I quit my full time job: I was bored.
“Bored ?????????”
How could I be bored, working for a prestigious company, dealing with cool projects, with great and inspiring colleagues in Copenhagen, one of the smartest cities in the world?
I actually had an answer to that question:
“I am bored of sitting down at the office every week, but the most boring part is receiving a salary at the end of the month.”
You can imagine the reaction. How can one be bored of a monthly salary?
I felt weird for a long time and tried to understand what was wrong with me, as all my friends seemed more than happy to receive a salary at the end of the month. The whole world seemed happy about that!
..Until I found out that I am completely normal. I was just honest, instead of fooling myself with the biggest lie of our society: the monthly salary happiness.
While studies (Daniel Kanheman and Dan Pink) show that incentives have a negative effect against motivation and happiness is not correlated to salary, being outside the comfort zone is one the hottest topics taught at Universities, Business Schools etc. — Yet, everyone is looking for the most comfortable position in life: the monthly salary. 😲
The Lie 🤥
Try to ask some employees the following question: “why are you working for this company, from Monday to Friday, 9 to 5?”
Typical Employee’s answers:
- “I’ll just work until I have $$$ and then do what I want.”
- “I love my job!”
- “I am going to resign next month.”
- “It is good for my CV, in one year I will quit and do what I really want .”
- “I just started, I need to be here for some time to not make my CV look bad”.
Those are some of the typical answers, that I do not find very convincing. They sound more like quick excuses, or lies, more than answers. Lies over The Lie.
And that is how most employees work until death.. Fooling themselves with lies, instead of accepting the truth.. What is the truth?
“If you don’t define the “what I want” alternate activities, the X figure will increase indefinitely to avoid the fear-inducing uncertainty of this void.” — Tim Ferris.
And the chicken’s truth 🐔
A day without someone else’s schedule is like a blank page that one can fill with his own words.
A blank page can be scary to look at. It takes effort to accept its emptiness. Most people immediately escape from its emptiness to grab something more tangible and already prepared, that can give them an immediate sense of “direction”. They then crave for a task, given by someone else (their boss for example), instead of accepting the emptiness of their own blank page.
Doing so, they get a quick direction on what to do, but that direction did not come from themselves. Therefore they are not following their own path and they will never do so.
They grab the first easy solution at the price of avoiding the great potential of their own emptiness on the long run. Great potential, as it is not difficult to understand how a blank page has a unique potential for creativity, self expression and realization. Emptiness forces us to think, elaborate and create our own future.
Escaping from emptiness, they try to lie to themselves with the usual excuses, but the truth is quite obvious: they are afraid. Afraid of what?
Dreaming vs Thinking about the future
Dreaming about the future, that is what most employees do. They do dream about holidays, travels, Fridays, whatever that is not here and now, whatever that can make them feel relief about their present. They escape from their present through a dream of a future, that can be far away in time or just the afternoon after work drinking beers to shut down their brain, their thinking, hence forget their miserable day.
It is the “Vacation mania”, where all the salary goes. In fact, it is known that cash incentives lead to short term thinking.
“But even so-called incentive pay encourages short-term thinking and value grabbing. Any kind of cash is more about the present than the future.” — Peter Thiel
Thinking about the future is different. It means looking at the future with vision. Not perceiving a monthly salary check forces one to build every single minute of his own future. A future that is not wasted with lies or “escaping activities”. A future that has to be in continuation with the present to be realized.
In this state of uncertainty, one can focus on what is really important and reach his own flow of thoughts. This flow is the ideal tension that appears near the “emotional midpoint between boredom and anxiety.” That tension that allows us to dedicate all our energy (or self) to a specific activity and finally transcend from the common idea of time.
“Uncertainty is our rocket ride into the now.” — Peter H. Diamandis
There is a clear difference in attitude towards the future between employees and “unemployed”: The future of someone who does not get a fixed monthly salary seems frightening to the employees eyes. On the other side, the present of an employee seems miserable to the free one’s eyes, a sort of terrible back-up plan that should be avoided at any cost.
Taking the time to think and reflect is definitely not appreciated by the mass and by a society that wants “everything right now”. Avoiding emptiness and uncertainty makes us feel apparently more efficient, more productive and more stable.
Is that true? At what price?
