Day 267 of writing every day.
In order to succeed in life, we have to find something we’re good at—not necessarily the best at—that can generate enough income to sustain ourselves through old age. This could be money but could also take shape in the form of food as well for all I know. If you want to die young doing things you love, that’s fine too I suppose.
For too long I’ve only considered Aikido to be the only thing I definitely wanted to make time for, but have been avoiding the issue of building a professional career, a trade on which I can depend on to sustain a living. I’ve held jobs but they’ve been mostly low skill work that at best might lead to lower level management in the office. For many that might be good enough but for me, that sort of life doesn’t seem to be worth living, especially if I’m offering my working life to people I don’t even respect in terms of how they treat other people as disposable pawns for nothing other than the purpose of making money.
Liberal arts education might have had some influence over me, but I think part of me is just idealistic by nature. There are things that I’m just unwilling to compromise on principles and in that sense I might be better off being my own boss but as one who gets checked and advice from people I trust to be ethical as well.
Starting a business someday that promotes something I care about might be a dream of mine. They never really taught you how to be a job creator or how to concretely achieve the dreams you want in life at school. It was mostly about getting good grades so you can go to college and get a good job.
In retrospect that sounds so vague and dumb when we’re all forced to eke out a living in a society that expects personal responsibility whether it’s making money or protecting yourself from predators looking to take your money either with fraud or suggestions that drive you to buy a product or service you didn’t need before. I think a classmate of mine who decided to ask a teacher in language arts class how reading literature was going to help them find work in the real world was being quite realistic and frank. Literature can enrich our lives but many are struggling just to get by. Their priorities would be to find a way to improve their lives, not get away from reality by escaping to the comfort of books. Not if they have people they need to provide for.
I personally think the idea of setting an expiration date on money would be a great idea to reset the current system that greatly favors established wealth. If money is hidden away offshore, then there should be a rule that turns it all to dust since it’s not being put to use and has a higher probability of being a stash made from illegal and questionable activities. Maybe there could be an exception for money not expiring by putting them in regulated investment schemes. Put money to work and let it flow or lose it. Perhaps then the idea of universal income might be achieved.
Thinking on what to do next to get an assignment, I will be focusing on SQL and working with databases. I had an online meeting today with sales and was informed that there’s basically no work for frontend developers in Osaka even though there seems to be plenty in Tokyo. So SQL it is.
Thanks for reading!
One Chance Works 