Go play
Kids play. Pushing things around, using shoe as a plane, baking a cardboard on invisible oven, doing completely meaningless tasks, creating something that won’t matter a thing tomorrow. Or sooner.
Adults ‘work’ – absolute majority of us are doing things we literally despise. We hate our mornings for the need to go and do that thing called work. More often than not, it’s completely meaningless, makes no difference to anyone.
Moving numbers on screen, creating spreadsheets and presentations no one will ever look at, creating obsolete, stupid products and services we all know are useless, just because ‘it sells’ – is that the purpose? What we are creating today, usually doesn’t matter tomorrow, or in a month.
Yet, kids enjoy it. Adults despise it. Who is smarter? If we both are doing tasks and procedures that are completely meaningless and mundane, isn’t joy the only factor separating them?
Of course, kids won’t get monetary compensation. But, doing the tasks you hate just to be rewarded with some arbitrary number with made up value – does that make you smarter? You can buy things with it, but what if the value of money, which is arbitrary, was suddenly stripped away from it? We do not have any control over it, so it may, and might not happen.
Living in the western world with ‘solid and stable’ economy, we blindly believe that’s simply not going to happen. I’ve seen mortgages paid off with a value of one Starbucks coffee, intentional short-term payment delays just to double the value of one, basing it exclusively on depreciation of another. So, since it can happen, what if it did?
You’d spend your whole life completely in vain, stripped of any fun and joy it could have brought. Without ever feeling or knowing you’re alive. On the other hand, kids did not expect anything, but to feel joy and happiness while performing their tasks. That’s the reason why that’s not work, but – play.
Start playing and stop worrying about the value of finances. In exchange you’ll get enormous, unmeasurable wealth – happy, fulfilled and meaningful life, without the ‘work’ factor casting shadows.
Go play.
Luka Pensa
23 February 2014