Top Ten Reasons to Remain a Wage Slave
Steve Pavlina’s recent posts 10 Myths About Self-Employment and 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job inspired me to create my own top-ten list.
Why be an entrepreneur? You know, entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone. And it isn’t as great as entrepreneurial bloggers say it is. Being an employee has some serious advantages. Here are the top ten reasons to remain a wage slave:
10. Some people actually like being employees. At least that’s the rumor. And they spend an awful lot of energy complaining— er, I mean, proclaiming to the world how much they love it! And if you’re one of them, you may be better off as a wage slave. Because an entrepreneur needs to spend that energy making things better, not complaining about how bad things are.
9. It’s easier to coast on through. I mean, to be an entrepreneur, you’d actually have to be motivated. How many people are excited, motivated, and still miserable? Trust me, you can be just as miserable without the motivation it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur. The boss is motivated enough for both of you, and he can always browbeat you when he needs a little extra performance. No need to become engaged in what you do.
8. You don’t have to do any of the hard work. You don’t have to make any of the hard decisions. The buck does not stop here. There’s always someone higher up in management. If you ran your own business, you’d have to make it work. But as a wage slave, there’s someone else whose job it is to figure that out. That’s why it’s easier to get a job than to run a business. It’s the low-hanging fruit. And easy come, easy go.
7. It’s a dog’s life. To paraphrase Steve Pavlina, when you want to increase your income, you have to sit up and beg your master for an extra Scooby Snack. And then you roll over and have your belly rubbed. And who doesn’t love that?
6. You need something to blame your fears on. And if you had no employer, who would you blame then? Who would take responsibility for your fears? Or your future? Trust me, you’ll be much happier if you can make it someone else’s fault when you’re miserable.
5. It’s all about the money. It’s not about the experience, the freedom, the personal growth, or the opportunity to help others. It’s about the money. And the easiest and quickest way to make a quick buck is still to hire yourself out to someone else’s dreams. ‘Nuff said.
4. You’re not a big dreamer. Yeah, you have a lot of warm fuzzies about the kinds of things you’d like to accomplish. Those are your “dreams.” But you don’t actually see them in your mind’s eye. You haven’t actually experienced them in your imagination. And you don’t actually believe you can ever have them. They must remain just dreams. Besides, if you actually believed in your dreams, you might actually find a way to make them a reality! And that would just be too horrifying.
3. Uncle Sam needs you. At least in the U.S., there’s a good reason the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. Because the IRS extracts more from the working class to pay for government programs than from investors. It does so because wages is where most of the money is. As an entrepreneur, you’d become an investor in your own future, with all the tax loopholes that come along with it. And the temptation would just be too great. You’d become one of them! Ugh! I can’t think of anything more disgraceful.
2. Why challenge the status quo? Most people believe that being an entrepreneur is more risky, more stressful, and less profitable than good, old-fashioned hard work. (Because we all know that in the old-fashioned days, everyone was someone else’s wage slave, and the best workers never worked for themselves and their own families.) Even if most people’s beliefs are wrong—and I’m not saying that they are—why challenge them? Just think of how bad things could get if you actually became successful as an entrepreneur. Everyone would think you were out to get them, and they’d hate you. Why risk that?
And finally…
1. Who needs freedom anyway? Philosophers and fiction writers have made much of man’s innate need to be free, or something like that. But come off it! We don’t want to be free. We’d rather feel safe. That’s why human societies appoint for themselves dictatorial governments, not just once in a while but repeatedly through history. And that’s why most people prefer to be wage slaves. It’s easy, and it’s comfortable. You don’t need to be in control of your own life any more than they do theirs.
As I prepare my own foray into entrepreneurship, I’m encountering many of these arguments among my friends and family. I understand, because I’ve been there. In fact, though I make fun of these objections, they came mostly from the dark part of my own psyche. It’s not as dark as it once was. I used to spend all my energy complaining about what I didn’t like. I still do sometimes, but hopefully less than I did before. Because I finally figured out that no one is going to make my life better, unless I do myself. So I respect their feelings and concerns, and I need to stay focused on the goals that will make my dream a reality. Stay tuned to this blog, as I’ll definitely be posting here more stories of my saga.
-TimK
