playing the game

We all do it.  In order to live our lives in the style to which we have grown accustomed we have to turn ourselves into commodities.  Human Resources.  Learn to manufacture a product or provide a service that can produce a profit and you win.  If you don't turn a profit, but just scrape by, you're doing the best you can... and you're still in the game.  But if you decide that the idea of becoming a commodity is too close to prostitution, then you're disqualified.

Why do we so readily agree with it?  Because the institution is in place, and has been for generations, it must be working?  We feel obliged to go through the de-humanizing process of finding work and rarely complain about the bizarre expectations for self-promotion involved.  Are you lucky if you have work?  Is that really luck if it forces you into a situation you'd rather not be in?

And so we compromise.  In order to stay in the game we give up a bit of ourselves.  We sacrifice our desires for stability.  Or we even try to win sometimes.  Smart women finish rich, right?  But what's the real price tag?  This is the only life we get.  Does it matter what we do with it?  Ultimately, no, as far as the rest of the universe is concerned we're welcome to be miserable, or poor, or greedy.  The only real difference it makes is to our own quality of life.

And if enough people figure out how to do what they want to do instead of what they have to do, maybe there's hope.