The Grind

May 17th, 2021

None of us asked to be here.

What I mean by that is: never in human history did any of us specifically request to be born.

Keep this in mind for a minute.

As we reassess what life was, what it’s been over the last year and what it’s going to look like, it feels like everyone has a strong opinion about the economy and, more specifically, the workforce.

There is no question that nearly every business is having trouble hiring employees, and the list of reasons why is long, from the complicated to the not-so-complex.

My entire life, but especially now, there’s a phrase I hear that people love to say but I don’t think anyone really thinks too much about:

“People have to work.”

It is common knowledge that in order to be a human being, you have to be productive, you have to be of service, you have to contribute, you have to do something to be worth something.

I just have to ask a simple follow-up question.

Why?

If none of us asked to be here, then why is it a requirement that we have to earn any kind of keep?

And I apologize because my question wasn’t rhetorical. The answer is we don’t.

If you’re pro-life then, in a way, you should be anti-work. If you’re insistent on bringing people here who never asked to be, then you should be equally supportive of that person’s right to live a life that makes them happy.

And as people reassess what it means to work, what it means to be worth something, and what it means to be happy, we have a whole lot of other people who are trying to make them forget all that and just get back to the insistent grind that we endure until we’re ash.

Something of worth that makes them worth something.

I say you already are. Worth something, that is. If you need to eat, then find a way to eat. If you need to sleep, then find a way to sleep. Those are basic conditions that life makes you meet, and life never gave you a contract to read and sign before you agreed.

And if you’ve made the realization over the last year that maybe human beings are put here against their will to do more than just work, then know that maybe you see life in a grander and more fulfilling way than a simple, capitalistic society can fathom.

And I think that’s what makes you and I special.