If you are new here, please read my about page
You’re a Good Little Slave!
Wake up on time.
Arrive at work.
Smile and say hello to people you don’t even know.
Do what you’re told without question.
Rush to the bathroom and back!
You’re not given enough time to relieve yourself.
You accept this, because you’re a good little slave!
Eat lunch at your desk. Eat quick!
Work. Work. Work.
The cubicle is your ball and chain.
Stress and toil.
Life takes a backseat.
Focus on your job! Think about your career!
Work late, family can wait, you’ve got deadlines.
You’re a good little slave!
Work is your prison, from which you cannot escape.
You Don’t Have to be a Good Little Slave!
We are conditioned to go through a preconceived set of motions that bind us to an inflexible existence. Get a stable job. Settle down. Put away money for retirement. Take that once a year vacation. Assimilate and be comfortable. We are made to feel that not adhering to narrow guidelines will result in nothing but failure. It is through this fear of failure that keeps many of us living a life devoid of its true potential. If you knew with certainty that you would be dead exactly one year from today, would you continue to do the same things each day that you are doing right now?
So many of us get stuck in a routine where work becomes the focal point and only thing we think about in life. Work life balance is thrown around as an idea, yet rarely done in practice. At work, there is usually a mundane code that is adhered to. This stifles creativity and creates a culture of people blindly following the pack. We are afraid to speak out against things we disagree with or don’t think are good ideas. We cower in fear at the thought of being just a little different. This is detrimental to a company’s ability to differentiate itself, and adapt in a changing marketplace. In a world of constantly changing ideas and rapid dissemination of information, this can be damaging to a company’s goals and objectives. This is even more damaging to the human beings that make up the workforce.
It causes us to suppress how we really feel. It waters down our personalities into narrow confines that limit our ability to be alive and feel. Accepting things as “that’s just the way things are” is the fool’s way out of taking a stand. Where there is a will there is a way. There is an alternative. You can do something besides the status quo. If you don’t like your current situation or predicament, there are endless worlds of opportunity and paths that exist to revolutionize and ignite your life into the way you want it to be. It starts with resolving to change your current plight. It starts with realization. It starts with you. Don’t be a good little slave; be you!
Twitter Updates
Dude, chilling About Page, it vividly brought me back to the day where we had to decide to rot in TI hell for eternaty or take a stand and decide that we weren’t going to listen to the rumors! Bravo on getting the site up dude, I love it, looks very tight from ur Joomla days I must say. Now time to throw off the bowlines, sail away from sail harbor and find out what you’re dreams have been telling you.
It’s funny to think about being a good little slave after spending the past 3 days trudging through endless swampland on the Great Plains of Eastern Hungary and just getting into a random Romanian city that happens to be tighter, bigger and more exciting than any other city I’ve visited in a while. Life is tough outside of the illusion, but there’s no other way!
Thanks for the support BJ! I’m glad it’s finally up! I wrote the about page from the heart. We really went through a process of discovery and soul searching while experiencing the peak of TI. (Ill have a post soon about TI). During these past 3 months or so, you could have still been sitting in front of a computer getting weird looks from co-workers because you had a copy of Rolf Potts’ Vagabonding An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel book on your desk! Enjoy Romania, I can’t wait to see your next post!
If I knew that I would be dead one year from now, or even one month from now, I would not be doing what I am doing now in this TI job. People take life for granted and assume they have all the time in the world so they waste years of it trying to mold themselves to what society says is “normal”. They go through the years of boring (and expensive) school, get a boring job and settle down with the house in the burbs and 2.5 kids. I think that most people lie to themselves every day and pretend that they enjoy what they do, that the 12 hour days and devoting life to work really mean something. Many people, like myself, are afraid of what else might be out there, of the unknown, so they stick to the safety of their established bubble and don’t venture far from it. And many people, like myself, dream every day about living somewhere else, doing something else, being someone else, but hold back for some reason from acting on it. Please use this site to continue to inspire people to at least dare to look into who they really are and what they really want to do. This has been a welcome awakening for me!
Jennifer, the status quo can become a silent prison of the mind that sits patiently in the background. I agree completely with you and wish more people would step outside their comfort zone in order to find what they truly desire and what they are passionate about. Whatever you feel, think, or wish, don’t hold back! You will find where you’d like to go and how. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
Right on. Too many people settle for the status quo. It’s sad. I recently decided to bust out, and the journey towards freedom has been thrilling so far. It’s amazing how alive and energized you feel when you really take back control of your life.
And your last paragraph really drives the point home: it’s all up to the individual. It’s a choice we make, to settle for mediocrity. And we each have the power to choose differently.
The positive energy from breaking out and doing your own thing embarking on your personal journey is rarely unmatched by anything! Good luck bursting out and obtaining freedom Niall!
Dear, Taco,Muke
Love the site looks good and i am proud
Hey, thanks for adding me on Twitter.. Normally if it’s random I just delete the notice but I kinda got reading and I found myself going over and over the about section.. I’m at that sort of point where I’ve finished Uni and worked in the same job for a year and thinking, surely I dont have to do this for another 40 years??? So thanks for the inspiration. I’ll be keeping a close eye to what you have to share..
You never have to be doing the same thing for 40 years or even one more year for that matter! I’m so glad you were inspired. If you don’t like what you’re doing, position yourself to break away and do what you want. Also, seriously your photos are great! I look forward to hearing what you end up doing!
I fully agree, preach on brotha!!!
Live your life to the fullest. Meet new places, meet new people, new cultures. Travel the world. Family is great but it comes with many responsibilities and less quality time. We all work many hours. Make it fun and use your free time away from the TV.
Totally agree with the last sentence. I went without cable for a year and it was awesome. I surfed, played guitar, watched tons of movies and spent quality time with my wife. Unfortunately my new roommate wanted cable so I find myself getting sucked back in. Bummer.
Aren’t you a hypocrite because you still work in corporate america yet you denigrate the corporate lifestyle endlessly. If you hate and see so much wrong with it why dont you leave? You slave!! Ha! THere is nothing stopping you Mark. Go! Corporate america will go on without and you without it. Or are you just a hypocrite hanging on because you can’t live out your philosophy? Why don’t you put this post on your blog and respond so people can see you are just some angst-ridden dope who can’t find anything more interesting in his life than the bordem you so easily find. You say you went to college, got a job, and “…did everything right” well Mark you should try to revise that last comment and contemplate on why you say such a stupid thing because obviously you did not do much right.
Quit complaining!!!!!! GO DO SOMETHING!!!!!
Really? Do you have to leave the same comment on every page? Come on now. You must be really bored at work, eating lunch at your desk and pretending you are busy to impress the boss. And name calling? Seriously? Grow up. Get a life. Mark clearly is.
Reading this article is making me think that I’m doing the right thing. mmm…donuts…
Thank you for this article. I DO speak out against bad ideas & I TELL the powers that be when bad ideas are resulting in a loss of business… the consequence being ostracization from coworkers who feel like I should keep my mouth shut. Yet they also seem to DEPEND on me to speak up due to their own unwillingness. I… it’s baffling and this article makes me feel justified in my fight. Honestly, it’s my customers that make my world go round due to being awesome human beings (for the most part), which just cements my commitment to ensuring things run smoothly for them.
MAK, I’m so glad that you do speak out against bad ideas and stand up to the “powers”. Too often the fear of losing one’s job is that rational for not speaking up when bad decisions are being made. The ostracizing from coworkers can be difficult to deal with as we spend most of our waking hours with our coworkers. It’s not very often that there is someone who has a spine and can actually stand up for what they believe in. MAK keep fighting the good fight!
I guess I would be more scared of losing my job if I felt incapable of getting another one. I should probably be more concerned given the economy. But… it’s not my personality to keep my mouth shut haha.
Yay, I like this post!!! I don’t want to be a slave anymore … will be declaring freedom quite soon!
Hell yeah Nina!!! I’ll be looking forward to seeing how your journey of freedom progresses! The trough no more!
Hi Mark, do people ever quit a job they love? Perhaps people just haven’t found their ideal job yet? Whatcha think?
Most people quit their jobs because they don’t love it. I’m sure there are cases where people quit a job they love because of other obligations though.