I operate on the principle of least effort. Lots of life does. Because energy is not infinite.
Many things can't be done, and plenty don't need to be done.
I conserve my life force for things more important to me than work, or a career, or jobs.
I never wanted any of that. I just want to live.
principle of least effortn.
The proposition that, in striving for a goal, an organism generally seeks a method involving the minimum expenditure of energy. ...
Masanobu Fukuoka, in The One-Straw Revolution, put it this way.
“I do not particularly like the word 'work.' Human beings are the only animals who have to work, and I think that is the most ridiculous thing in the world.Other animals make their livings by living, but people work like crazy, thinking that they have to in order to stay alive.The bigger the job, the greater the challenge, the more wonderful they think it is.It would be good to give up that way of thinking and live an easy, comfortable life with plenty of free time.I think that the way animals live in the tropics, stepping outside in the morning and evening to see if there is something to eat, and taking a long nap in the afternoon, must be a wonderful life.For human beings, a life of such simplicity would be possible if one worked to produce directly his daily necessities.In such a life, work is not work as people generally think of it, but simply doing what needs to be done.”
In my simple life I am concentrating on doing what needs to be done.
What needs to be done is minimal compared to what we think should be done.
I am doing what needs to be done, and not much more. I have learned to find joy and contentment in that.
It seems that it's a societal dictum that everyone MUST "work". That if one isn't working, they must be searching for work. And on top of that they need to be working on their goals, or at least working on working on making goals. All of this frenzied, obsessive need for constant doing, moving, acquiring. This constant striving to be more, bigger, better, faster. People will deem you a slacker, a loser, a failure, a mooch, a do-nothing if you aren't caught in the rat race of trying to climb that ladder, to join the Jones's, or to at least appear to be like them or to be "aspiring" to achieve that level of "success". It seems to me that many people just want to be treated like human beings and want to be appreciated and seen for who they really are, and to do "work" that's meaningful to them, but are instead indoctrinated to believe that there is only one path to "success" in our world and that is through being the richest, smartest, prettiest, fastest, strongest, most famous person they can be. So we sacrifice ourselves on the altar of all of these things, and then wonder why so many people are miserable and empty.
ReplyDeleteEven if you win the rat race, you are still a rat.
DeleteThank you for sharing your powerful rant. We love it.
- Gregg