Willing Slaves, Pretending to "Have It All"

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Comment by Toni Deckers on September 21, 2008 at 9:12am

I have a friend who once said, "You can have it all, just not all at once."

Comment by Douglas Karr on September 18, 2008 at 6:17pm

Lalita,

As a single Dad who is climbing up the ladder of success, each step makes me wonder if my success is actually trampling the happiness of my children and the cohesiveness of my family unit. We've not actually gone grocery shopping in months, there simply isn't time. The demands of work and a blossoming side career are huge. I feel as though I have the momentum and if I do anything to stop that momentum all will be lost. That's a tough spot to be in!

Willing slave is an amazing term and I absolutely couldn't agree more. Perhaps a synonymous term is "Salaried Exempt Employee". That classification is growing at a wicked rate in this country - surpassing all of those rights that folks worked so hard to attain for us.

Great post - although I do take exception with the Palin gag. I think she's a sincere leader with solid convictions. Even if you disagree with her, I believe she demands our respect for moving from the PTA to the VP candidate.

Doug

Comment by Dave Gibbs on September 18, 2008 at 11:05am

You are right - one cannot really have it all. That is a marketing pipedream that drives people to buys things they don't need and get involved with things they don't really want.

A few notes:
Industrialization started primarily in the UK, then Europe, and then strongly transitioned in the US during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Industrialization was not a force of history, but a very complex development in a world that was being challenged by progressive notions of development (progressive here does not hold to a political meaning, but the hunger of production to meet international goals from a broad spectrum of reasons).

Salvation by works is contrary to the basic tenants of Protestantism; which, also, developed a very high view of labor and common life activities.

The reality of wages and the dynamics of labor in traditional life and mass immigration is quite a complex one. The country was still very agricultural until World War II, which caused great changes in daily living, in the aftermath.

I disagree that US history is merely one long litany of ill treatment, but in our freedom and as traditional life became deconstructed the opportunity to take advantage of people in the labor force increased (though that problem had always been there). Life could be very hard back then and many urban labor conflicts ended with fighting in the streets, especially when labor turned from the natural ebb and flow of agricultural life to the demand for production in urbanized industry.

Actually, the 70s was a two-sided animal, while it was the decade of revolutionary change in the country. It was also the decade of the country's highest overall standard of living. That changed by the late-70s.

We do need business and we do need stuff to support our daily life; but, today, we have a problem with the growing cost of living over taking the cost of wages and the mad commitment to things that more and more people are forced to work all day in a way different from the reasons that brought about an eight hour work day.

Work is a part of our lives. In the agricultural days, labor flowed with day to day life commitments. For the most part, men and women did not sit around and whinge about who did what...they had to work hard just to get on in daily life.

Your comment “emotional vampires” is how a self-centered society views others, like Jean Paul Sartre’s “Nausea”.

What is central is finding out who we are (being), then all else follows. Even so, there will still be the challenges of daily life.

Comment by Hazel "The Queen" Walker on September 17, 2008 at 8:17pm

I believe it is our lack of values, that drives us to want more stuff. Having stuff fills the void that a lack of values leaves. We talk about values, like integrity, family, contribution, love, and honesty but we tie those values to money, to having it all.

As for work life balance.......there is no such thing, there is work life harmony, but not balance. I once asked a friend of mine how he managed to balance a very successful marriage, children, writing, multiple businesses and a heavy speaking/traveling schedule and he said, "I am 100% present wherever I am and whatever I am doing. I do not seek balance only harmony, and harmony comes with presence, multi tasking is the death of harmony."

Comment by Sarah Brown on September 17, 2008 at 7:53pm

I have seven children, I always wanted to have a large family. I didn't want a job or career, but I did want to be a woman of influence, inspiration and blessing- to my family first.
This summer the family car didn't work, so we were stuck at home for two months, my life became very localized in the small town of Fortville. I got to know people in my town, with the internet I have had time to get back to writing for the local paper (with Eric D.) I teach my own kids, fight for my family's rights in Town Hall, and milk goats. I feel like I do have everything I need and all I could want, thanks to God, and my husband who supports our family. I am thankful that we own our own business and have freedom to live and work as a family. We are blessed. Maybe when I'm older I'll run for office, I’m thinking of writing a book, but for now I need to be an influence from home, where I can tend my family first. With a great support system, called family, I will reach out even more from my home- but not for a career, I'm happy to leave that role to my husband. That's where life has us, and I am here because this lifestyle was my goal from the time I was 17- when I was graduating from homeschooling, writing for the local news paper, and looking forward to being a wife and mom.
There are many ways to live life, but our goals, faith, priorities, and choices have a lot to do with the joy we will find in life, and the influence we will have on others. My life is not “easy”, and with this pile of laundry I can hardly find the backdoor some days, but I feel so blessed to have found a place of balance and peace in a stormy stressed out world.
Sarah P. does well because her family is a great team, I think you can’t look at this woman as an individual trying to have it all, you have to see the family as that team. I also don’t see Sarah as a woman that “has” it all, I see her as one who “gives” it all, she must be exhausted at the end of the day!

Comment by Erik Deckers on September 17, 2008 at 4:19pm

I think the problem is that we as a society put an emphasis on having it all, when we should focus on having enough. My wife and I have adopted this attitude. Sure, we could have a huge income and a big house and do all the things the other well-off McMansion dwellers do, but then we wouldn't be able to enjoy the things we're supposedly striving toward -- more money for more time together to do more things. But our kids would be in public school, not homeschool. There would be after-school daycare, and racing around like mad to get to every extracurricular event under the sun.

Instead, we focus on more time together and doing more stuff together, but without killing ourselves to make more and more money. Since our emphasis is on time together and creating memories, we don't worry about whether that time is at a local event compared to Disney World in the middle of summer. Our kids will remember that we did stuff together, not that my wife and I were always working, except for that really hot, grouchy week in Orlando.

Comment by Mike Seidle on September 17, 2008 at 10:52am

What you do with your life is your choice. If you want success, power, wealth, fame or simply people in your life that love you, you make decisions with the one thing that you really have: time. Want wealth? Work on making money. Want power? Get ready for spending 1000's of hours on the campaign trail. Want real love in your life? Get read to invest 1000's of hours in your personal life, and probably at the expense of your life at work. Today is not really all that different in the past in that respect. What is different is that we have technology that lets me spend time at home while negotiating a contract, or turns a drive in the car into something productive.

It's all about how you choose to live. If you feel society or "the times" make you too busy to be happy, that is your choice. After all, you can do like the main character in Office Space and just say "I'm not going to do that any more." That's called freedom, and we still have it in America.