A small thought note. I saw the the following Tweets and many other similar ones by the same individual author, and it provoked some deep reflection on the honesty of what life and work means to me. Whilst limiting government and policy talk.
"I watched a video where Elon mention a quote by Marcus Licinius Crassus. That a man could only consider himself truly rich when his annual income could raise and maintain a Roman legion. A legion is between 4000-5000 soldiers." 25 August 2023
"...Usually, it is the people who understand that money is a proxy for value that are the most trustworthy. The more money you make the more value you have generated for society." 27 August 2023
"The goal is to retire. Retirement is getting to a level of wealth where you can choose what to do with your day without time or financial restrictions. Retirement, or the wealth needed for it, is based on what you want to do with your day. Do you even know?" 28 August 2023
So many questions to raise, and I get the motivation and productivity principles. Firstly, usually such statements come from a rich person where wealth is of upmost importance on their agenda and status. Many present their financial status and what monetary value they bring and spend before any other attribute. When to me it is the quality of the person that comes first. I wonder how these types of people react when someone attempts to succeed them through their own 'advice'? It breeds unnecessary competition and rivalry.
Emotional and relational value doesn't leave societal impact? People with spiritual passion shouldn't be seen as none impactful. Spiritual healing and life coaching for example. Seems pretty incredulous to me.
Or have I got all this wrong in my head? To me these statements are down right dangerous, and again, come from the already rich, allegedly powerful and probably privileged backgrounds. This displays greedy and militant leadership in the style of Elon Musk. I confidently and unapologetically say that I am unable to work under someone that is leading with those values. We are in a climate where we must be vocal and and challenge such values. It depends on where you work and what position you hold, or where you want to work and the position you want to hold, that gets people the wealth they are looking for. It's easy to spout out motivation and productivity principles from people already at the 'top', when in fact they may not have adhered to their own advice but been served it on a plate, or been far too easy to influence others. Anyway, all of this encourages more greed and capitalism in people, which will ultimately lead to more characters like the rich and corrupted. Whilst empathy for the planet and personal wellbeing is being depleted. We should educate people to be rich in life experience and wholeness/happiness and leaving a positive imprint, not just to be rich and superior to others through fakeness and consumerism. I also believe that being abundant in money doesn't bring you happiness, but the meaningful things you spend it on or choose not to spend it on, and whom with. As often celebrities say it is very lonely at the top - not a good sell to me. To me, obtaining richness in life can be achieved by deeply making connects with others and the natural world, travelling and seeing other cultures and lifestyles, and immersing yourself in them. A benefit when I see such things it makes me react like this, grounding and confirming my values and principles - so that's my positive spin on this reaction. I'm not in favor of money chasing and doing the whole rat race thing, but we all subscribe to it somewhat. Especially when you feel you know what you might be 'worth' according to organisation's pay scales. However, it is important to have regular and adequate income given today's ever increasing cost of living, which is mostly due to greedy people and businesses. For me, I am interested in and committed to personal and professional growth, and being successful in making a positive and impactful difference in the work I do. And if that results in a bit of incremental progression, I think that's healthy, as it's natural to me not forced. We all need to enjoy life as it goes, it should not be about take and greed. But yes this is how our country works and pretty much the whole world. All about financial gain and status. You could spend most of your life chasing a job that you may not get, then die the next day. It could be quite the waste to discount other aspects of your life in favor of only chasing money. But I get that rapid personal/business succession may lead to rapid innovations. Though surely everyone racing and fighting each other for the above, will push quality of business/service, economy and healthcare further down? Well, quality criteria in general is usually critical until it isn't I.e. it matters until it suddenly doesn't matter. For example, when a product, service or students are at completion stage and incomplete quality criteria is harder to achieve, then a conscious decision is often made to pass to avoid delays or further challenges.
I do feel this anxiety that you have to keep doing work and earning and spreading yourself thin, just in case of job security, government changes, pensions etc. Yes some of it is natural career ambitions but I feel deep down it is due to the capitalistic impressions from the government and media spinning that all these negative societal changes must require such things from me. I feel much of professional life comes down to how people influence and shape 'the conversation and data' they want it to be; lack of actual truth. And how convincing and persuasive language is relied heavily too much on without evidence and true facts. Resisting capitalistic tendencies is very challenging indeed, perhaps the radical rest movement is the way? I like the outlook that it's not about what and how much you have got and how you look at it. Overall, I think our human instincts and survival skills and have evolved to not fall behind in the idealism of capitalism. Meaning if you are not rich or aiming to be rich, you'll be left behind/die. Which is nothing new really, but has got worse. And perhaps what provokes my strong sense of ensuring financial stability.
Yes I wanted to make something of myself and have a good salary, as I mentioned in my blog post 'What working class means to me'. I am guided by the principle that as long as you can do what you like to do in life, it doesn't matter how much you get. Complemented by other sayings that, 'it doesn't matter how much you earn, but how much you spend' and 'we all come to this earth plane with nothing, and we leave with nothing, and then at some point we must learn the act of letting go'. But I know my spiritual boundaries and know being consumed by richness is something I am not and will not be driven by. And because of my working class back ground I have a strong instinct to provide security and financial stability. Both when I was single and living alone to being married. Which links to my personal saying by not living beyond my means. Yes I did strive for more, but it was both personal and professional goals and ensuring stability through a decent salary. It's ok to change your lifestyle after getting a promotion, but it worked excellently for me (so far) by not jumping on that bandwagon; no upsizing to downsize later etc. And enjoy work progression in mean time. That's what my aim is and was, natural progression with no desire to get straight to the pseudo pinnacle. Like Gary said, I can be successful and still be working class. In personal life I haven't changed the way I live. I'm still the original Barnsley me at the core. However, it does feel like the world is driven by the man to get you to spend all the time (always offers (when they might not be), a marketing narrative of why I supposedly need something or to panic purchase), even if the products are good and enrich your life as well as the wider economy. Again I am glad that I know when my needs are met and when I need to get things, rather than keep playing to businesses needs.
Forever to me means me, my husband, my cats, my home, comfort, health, and my family and friends. Whilst I understand some are solo in life, that should be some sort of vision or hope. We need more love and feel-good vibes in the world. Though nowadays, I think you have to make that an inner and close circle thing.
I've had to put on hold some other personal pursuits as I am still establishing and shaping my full-time role and team. And this deserves a fair bit of my time as I have longed for this role and invested in my professional development for it. Once I have got it all to a settled state then I can relax those efforts to concentrate back on some personal endeavours.
I know I still need to set some boundaries and learn to say no to things, in the effort to avoid burnout - as its my dream job. I will naturally work hard in my full-time work as I am passionate about what I do and personal and professional development. But there's my own personal wellbeing, husband, cats, family and friends to balance too. And I still want to develop my abilities to be some sort of spiritual enquirer, and look at integrating Movement Medicine into my lifestyle. But allocate space and time to the other aspect of me; "...healing and developing and utilising my abilities in vulnerability, empathy and intuition..." It will come when I am ready to quieten/narrow down and when I let my full-time job just be - but I want to enjoy that too. Maybe the world will benefit more from my healing side... We need more healers in the world, not leaders - there's too many of them and a lot potentially false. To help minimise burnout, I have finally took the decision to step down from some volunteering opportunities such as the Early-career learning technologists group and the PebblePad learning technologists check-in group - that I was caretaking. Including ending my formal external work in Further Education, through my final NCFE contracted pieces of work in March and May 2024. And delivering a masterclass for Level 5 Digital Learning Designer apprentices in January 2024, along with reviewing Ann Gravells and Gavin Lumsden's technology chapter in their forthcoming book due Summer 2024, to support the new Diploma in Teaching (FE and Skills) qualification. I've finally let go of doing those additional side things. I am specialising in healthcare Higher Education after all and want to narrow down and share all of that widely. I am in the role I have longed to be in, I can fully get my head down in it and in the context of healthcare HE.
I feel I am at a place of just enjoying being comfortable with everything around me, and being positively quiet. A good place to be, but not be too complacent as change is always afoot.
