Returning to the 9 to 5

Greetings Fellow Travelers,

Been a while since I last posted and I apologize. Over the last two weeks and even more, I have been settling in to my new job. Getting there has been quite an interesting journey for me, as I am sure you can appreciate. Despite my concerns about the implications for our lives as related to being employed via the contemporary job market, the sense of economic security that therein obtains, is hard to deny. This is true particularly in light of the fact that more desirable alternatives for meeting our basic living/economic needs, are at best limited and for a significant number, non-existent. So I would like to explore some of the questions or challenges, that emerge from this line of thought.
It seems to me that the effort to create self-sustaining economic structures, needs to be pursued with renewed vigor. We have many wonderful examples of individuals and groups, who have been able to, think outside the box, step away from the mainstream, and do their own thing, start their own enterprise. Indeed and ironically, it is these very initiatives that often end up becoming the dynamo of mainstream economic activity. The examples are endless, from Johnson Publications, the Nation of Islam, Oprah Inc., Bill Gates and on and on, indeed some of the wealthiest in the world, have done it outside of the conventional model of employment. Despite those examples and appreciation of our inherent creative capacity to sustain ourselves economically and the tremendous potential our dormant individual and collective resources, most of us remain wedded to the 9 to 5 as the primary model for sustaining and living our lives. I propose that what we are experiencing, indeed what drives most of us, is a process of learned dependency, pervasive in societies with glaring imbalance of power, that expresses itself in the experience of, or challenge to, our health and wellness, economic security, opportunities to develop and experience life from one's own creative "well".
Two final thoughts or options for us to consider if you, like me, find economic independence a desirable goal. It is, I believe, essential that we recognize that the wealth we are trying to get in order to meet our needs or to flourish, will for most of us come from one place or via one primary process. What we desire, as expressed in our visions of achievement, will surely be brought forth, presented by the universe. But I am equally convinced that it will be produced by us who dream the vision. The visions will emerge be fulfilled, from the potent validity of our conscious convictions and the valiant action needed to pursue, nay, to work for, to produce our wealth for our deserving selves. Regardless, many of us will continue to produce, making wealth everyday, the question that obtains here is whether, as a result of our devoted service on the 9 to 5, will the fruits of our labor enrich and nourish our lives or someone else. The other point I offer here is that we have to cleanse ours minds, examine our belief system, that implicitly suggests that our worth, our potential, only has meaning or validity, when endorsed by some external power or authority. That power structure, the system that may been seen as providing a living for us, exists only as a result of our concrete service to the machine. The job needs us as much as we need it, indeed the job is naught without the worker, to the contrary our worth is unconditional, independent and our capacity to create and produce, undeniable.