My wife and I love to watch videos of people fulfilling their dreams of running a clothing brand, coffee shop, or restaurant. If you watch enough of these, you will begin to notice a cliche that each individual will share as a core value that helped propel their journey. It sounds something like, “I just don’t think I was meant for a 9-5, sitting behind a desk all day.” My first initial thought has always been some semblance of sympathy to that statement. I can feel something within me cry out, “Nor am I!” However, this is generally followed up by, “Who is?” I am not sure any of us were meant to be mere cogs in a machine, in which we received no true value from our work outside of a paycheck. When Genesis tells us that God took man to the garden to till and keep it, it is hard for me to imagine that this meant to send emails. We were taken from our own gardens and thrown into the “cities” where corporations became king and our own individual worth began to blur with that of the company we worked for. I think we have long entangled what both work and purpose ought to be, often confusing these to mean the same thing. I believe that is why so many desire to be an influencer. We do not want to be tied to a company, we want to take back control of who we are and be recognized as an individual rather than just a part of something.
The current state of jobs we are presented with today rarely allows for, and certainly does not reward sanctifying work. Those that are most “successful” are often those who exploit the vulnerabilities in the market and consumer base in the most clever way. They have mastered selling convenience while upholding highly efficient production as the ultimate virtue. Many of the societal charisms are tied to monetary values because the root of capitalism has become about competition and the necessary tension within it that allows for choice. I cannot help but feel that the result of all of this choice has not led to our progress and happiness as a society, rather the financial triumph of major businesses at large.
We are all faced with the same problem of today. If we choose to play the game in which we were born into, the path to contentment will be filled with less obstacles. If we decide to play the game that we were made for, the path is only filled with obstacles. I often struggle in my own discernment of how to move forward given the perplexities of this 9-5 dilemma. We can describe the 9-5 as the world that provides most jobs, corporations who are able to provide stability in offering insurances, PTO and whatever other “benefits” that enable them to describe the workforce as a “family.” The other option would be the risk of losing the guaranteed safety which only the corporate desk can provide. This can be starting one’s own business, perhaps pursuing a life of self-subsistence through a homestead, or simply taking a leap from the known to the unknown. This decision is of course dependent on the individual’s state in life and the context which surrounds it: marriage, single, student debt, location, etc. That’s the worst part of it all, there is no blueprint for us to follow. Perhaps that is the scariest part, but perhaps it can be the greatest opportunity of our generation. We have gone long enough with Christians falling in line with the rest of the world, rarely ever daring to stand in front. A church that used to be innovative on every front that now seems content to just be imitative. I have never felt our job as Christians is simply to progress with society but to take the values and principles we have always known to be true and apply them today. So if we feel like we fell behind as a people, maybe it’s not because of what the Church teaches but rather the way we have carried out the teachings. When the world doesn’t provide the path that you think should be there, you have to be the one to pave it.