Philosophy of Work, Money & Happiness Part-III

Are we confused?

Yes, we are. I don't know about you but I know about myself. Like each one of us, I too have seen many faces of life, I too have tried many tricks to solve puzzle of life, and at some point I realized that I was trying to solve the puzzle with a wrong mindset which was in turn puzzling me.

When I worked for money, I set the type (quality) and amount (tasks) I will actually do to justify the amount of money I will get. I wasn't able to perform at work because I wasn't able to get the money I wished to get from the work. My unsatisfied mind produced unsatisfactory work. I tried to find a work which justified quality of my work with money and facilities I deserved, but I didn't find any. I had failed on both fronts either earing money or working. Soon, I was frustrated and depressed with the situation.

I felt so much humiliated that I didn't wanted to work for money anywhere, now I had changed my strategy, I only wished to work or do things that I was able to perform well. Money wasn't a consideration and stand nowhere in the scene. I only choose to work where I had opportunity to put my best. I followed this strategy and later adopted it for life, because then I discovered that money automatically followed the work. I enjoyed the work and was absorbed in it and I was getting money for this fun. I was well rewarded, without asking. Rewards weren't limited to money but much more then that which can't be described in words some of them are happiness, satisfaction, respect.

We work for money, spend money to work

Money and work are both double edged swords. We work to make money and then spend money to work. Today basic necessities aren't that important to us, they get easily fulfilled, we spend money in other luxuries which don't make much difference except that we burn time with them (and accumulate fat). When we are not working and have spare time, we try to reduce this spare time and money is something that we all use for this purpose. We may read, write, travel, eat, drink, watch and do what ever is possible and within our reach with the money we have in hand, to spend that extra time in extra activities. We burn money to search for an activity which can draw our attention to fullest. We like those activities which are able to draw most of our attention and then it is our hobby, our interest.

Relation between modern life style, time and money

Today we use all sort of gadgets and tools to save time, still we are more busy then ever in history. Why is this happening? Now, we are looking for gadgets that are automated, which don't need any intervention anywhere. Still we find that now we are more busy and have less time even for our own activities.

The problem is again in the time, that we have in hand, a lot of spare time. We have today designed our society and lifestyle in such a way that we have a ready collection of time burning gadgets and activities. Whenever we get some spare time, we spend it in one of them, then other, then another. Now, after spending time in these unscheduled activities or scheduled activities to relax, we find that we don't have enough time for our important tasks, most of which are naturally required for health and wellness.

Time and Money scene in developed and undeveloped societies

We can understand this with life in city ( a developed society) and village (undeveloped or less developed then cities). We can see there lifestyle, requirement of money and work. We can also compare there satisfaction, happiness and quality of life. I have a opinion that when we move from places which are undeveloped or under developed to places which are highly developed or modernized there is always an increased urgency for money, lack of time, more dissatisfaction and less happiness.

Philosophy of Work Part-II

Why do we work?

Just like philosophy of money, there is a philosophy of work too. We work for money and get money for our work. This is true when we glance at the picture casually. We all think and know that we have to work because it is the only source for earning money, but it isn't always true. Money can't always be the reason for working, doing jobs. This can be easily understood when we look further into this issue.

Actually we are naturally inclined to work, to do something which is physical or mental. We always need to engage ourself, if we are unable to find something to get hooked to, we will try to run away from that situation, place or time. We have a natural built-in tendency to work, we cannot survive without working. Even a child who has nothing to do with money tries to do some work. We like to engage ourself in something to such an extent that we can even pay or spend our hard earned money to keep ourself busy or involved. So, I think and feel that it is wrong to think that we have to work because we need money and money is the only factor for which we have to work.

Confusion of Money and Work

There is a confusion between working, working for money, money for work. Most of us get dissatisfied and unhappy becasue we are occassionaly trapped in this confusion. We have ourself turned a simple natural phenomenon into a complex unmanagable problem. We think we need money and therefore we have to work i.e., we give more importance to money then to work. We decide a work in terms of money, what we do and how we do depends on how much money it will make. Isn't it necessary to give more importance to work then to money, which will automatically solve most of our problems. This may look like a theory with no practical consequence but it isn't so.

Modern Philosophy of Work and Money - Part I

Working for Money or money for work?

We all work for money and there is no philosophy in it. It is just a way of life, and nobody has time to think or understand any philosophy or view on it. In ordinary life money is usually the prime factor which makes us work, they only reason we seek work. If we are unemployed and searching for work then we are not searching for work because we are unemployed or have enough spare time which can be used for some useful purpose. Our search for job or work is primarily a search for money which we think is the sole root of comforts in life, job or work is a medium through which we lay hands on money. We may or may not be interested in the job or work we are searching for or that we have to do but we are definitely interested in the money that it will fetch.

Why do we need money?

I know it is a stupid question in modern economic scenario. Money is today the only standard scale which is used to scale virtually everything in modern life whether its rank, prestige, name, fame or game. Today everyone and everything is measured in this unique scale, which automatically decides how much happiness or wellbeing we ought to get with these stats. Money is no more treated the way it used to be, artificially printed stationary has overtaken natural laws and instincts. Money is no more a basic requirement to fulfill basic needs of survival. Today our requirement for money gets more serious when these basic requirements get fulfilled to a satisfactory level or even beyond that.

Modern necessities are actually artificial beyond a limit. Any amount of money is little in modern world, we can spend any amount not in years or months but in hours or minutes, which can even happen without leaving our chair. Nothing visible to our eyes or any of our physical senses can eat up an amount which may have taken years or months to accumulate. This type of necessities or hobbies for activities with money were either non existing or unavailable to a common man earlier. There availability means anyone can make a costly mistake and then hop hopelessly for life, if he is unable to recover throughout the rest of his life.

Today when we initially start to work (for the first time) and make some money, we have only few things to manage with this money. When we start earning more, our artificial necessities also increase in proportion a bit more than what we can pay for. Its like a seed we sow, which turns into a plant and then ever expanding tree with ever increasing demand for more air, water and nutrition in the form of money but without any fruitful fruit.

Making money and more money to satisfy ever increasing demand for money to fulfill our artificial necessities can also be compared to a fire we lit for light. We feed this fire of desire with fuel of money. Now, this fire of desire becomes more aggressive or responsive and demands more fuel. This cycle continues until we reach a condition where there is either no fire or no fuel. When we reach this condition, if we are fortunate we inter speculate and rethink our strategy for life and if we are not then we may blame some external source and try to lit the fire again to reach the same conclusion one more time. This todays philosophical story of money.

......to be continued.......