I am no exception to most people who were told by their families to "study hard, get good grades, get into college, get a steady job with great benefits, ...."
I never bought into that. I bet just as many kids mouthed off the way I did to those who chanted that mantra to them : "If you know that, why didn't you study hard, get good grades, get more education and get a better job yourself?"
My teachers threatened me with doomsday prophecies of not being able to 'get a job' coz I was not a good student; to which I replied, "I wouldn't want to end up like you."
It might sound like I was intentionally being mean, but I was just a very frank person who did not realize that I was supposed to make a distinction between what I was really thinking in my head and what I actually said out loud. Of course, later on in life, I fitted in a few more HEPA-standard filters to prevent myself hurting the sensitivities of others.
I promised myself that I would never get 'a job' for the sake of having a job. I just thought it seemed really obvious to everyone that earning more money and working harder simply doesn't deliver the Utopian promise of a life filled with happiness, joy, harmony and peace. That is my basis for not doing homework that did nothing for me. My teachers used to threaten that if I do not "work hard" I would not get a job. Then I might as well not get a job since I don't believe in 'hard work'.
And I thought it seemed pretty obvious that everyone is not "happy" in their jobs - so why the constant religious fervor to 'get a job'? To me, the lecture of "go to school, get good grades, get a job" was the single most destructive philosophy for having a happy life. And I made my stand very clear and was labelled, "intelligent but lazy". I wrote essays rebuking the myth of 'the lazy child' and my theme was "There's no such thing as a lazy child, just an unmotivated one" and each essay argued the conditions that can turn a child off from being motivated. Of course, they called me things like "radical" for not believing that "lazy" is a direct consequence of not 'obeying orders blindly and perform the task diligently as instructed.' I even remember one where I wrote that, if they really want to insist I am intelligent (I do not believe I was) then wouldn't it also mean that it would be redundant for me to 'work hard' since I have already mastered the content? And in subjects that I am not interested in, wouldn't it be redundant to 'try and improve' in areas which obvioiusly I am not displaying an aptitude in.
I've always believed my schooling taught me nothing and robbed me of the times I could've spent on my own learning. I envy George Bernard Shaw that he beat to saying, "My schooling not only failed to teach me what it professed to be teaching, but prevented me from being educated to an extent which infuriates me when I think of all I might have learned at home my myself."
I was not so lucky in the sense that parts of me crumbled and the forces of ignorance and sheer stupidity in my life eventually infiltrated my soul and wreaked great dysfunction in me. If I were a Buddhist, I'd probably believe that I have my previous Good Karma to thank for saving me when I was on the verge of crossing over and dissolving the Nature I was born with. I used to sing this line, "Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must've have done something good" whenever I experienced an epiphany or awakening that pulled me back to confidence just as I was about to succumb and drift into the stream of ignorance.
I spent my 20s trying out different forms of work - and job-hopping was still scorned upon back then. Since I knew I was never going to 'get a job and work myself up', my plan was to just take a job because of what I can learn from it, not what it can do for me. - I was never really good at math, but I figured any hierarchy always follows the shape of pyramid - the numbers are most at the bottom and tapes to a single point in the end. For me to move up would require me to celebrate others having to stay down. That wasn't the sort of environment I wanted to enslave myself to.
The one job I loved the most was actually being a door-to-door salesman. It's really laughable but it's the only job I had that taught me how not to have a job and yet make money. (I sold Kirby vacuum cleaners!) I was given a choice to take a 30% commission on each sale I make or take a fixed salary. A fixed salary would be the equivalent of 2 sales a month. I figured, if 2 sales a month is the most I can make for the rest of my life, I deserve to live a life of a glorious loser. Picking up other people's dirt has been the richest experience of my life so far. It drummed into me the signficance of how money can be earned without a job. I proved it could happen. I feel so sorry for salespeople who grumble and complain about how much they hate their job because they are losing out on the most valuable lesson of making money. And I feel even sorrier for people who say they hate salespeople / network marketing people. But that's another story.
I told myself that the only way I was never going to work is to find something I loved so much that I'd never have to dread waking up in the morning to do it - something I would do even if no one was going to pay me to do it. A lot of the things I would like to express about learning and happiness and self-actualisation sounds radical, foolish and stupid and that's only because I am not (yet) a multi-millionaire. I don't covet money and the material things and status it can give me but power is the only way you can convince people that they're being stupid. And money is power.
Thankfully, a guy born 20 years earlier than me who believed equally as much that school doesn't teach anything it purpotedly teaches is an exponent on why the advice to, "go to school, study hard, get good grades and get a job" is the worst and most damaging advice a parent can give their child. While I had a really weak banker as an absentee father, Robert Kiyosaki was that much more fortunate to have two dads that gave him simultaneous, real-life scenarios - like a lab-controlled experiement, on who's more right than the other in disproving that (ridiculous) notion of 'hard work'.
I've noticed from reading history books and watching North and South (remember the show that launched Patrick Swayze in the 80s?) that rich people NEVER work hard for their money and I tried telling everyone that the secret of being happy, rich and successful does not come from simple, honest, 'hard work'. But no one ever listens to a 10 year old.
I'm just thankful that I came upon this realization early in life and that I have been vindicated in my convictions even if it was after having being pulled back from the threshold of going mainstream by divine forces which kept me firm on my belief of "Why in the world would anyone want a JOB!!"
