Just re-watched Leo's "How to Escape Wage Slavery". It feels particularly relevant now in my life because I just started a new job. This job is by far the best job I've ever had: It pays well, the hours are flexible, a lot of it is remote, and I have a lot of creative autonomy. Yet, it still doesn't fulfill me. Why? Because I don't care about the industry, I don't feel like the work is moving humanity forward in any way, and I still have someone telling me what to do (controlling my life to some extent) and I can't really say "no" without jeopardizing the gig.
So I wonder: Am I ungrateful? Or am I justified in still desiring something better? Don't get me wrong. The job isn't all sunshine and rainbows. It has its downsides. But it is a lot better than jobs I've had in the past like busing tables or Uber driving. In other words, as always, it could be better and it could be worse.
This experience has always inspired me to wonder: Is there really any way to escape wage slavery? Is there any way to escape the rat race for money? Yes, you can refuse to take a job and refuse to chase money and live a life of homelessness and poverty. In fact, I've tried it. Is it freeing? Yes, in some ways. Is it an adventure? Yes, absolutely. Is it good? Well... I don't know. It's a really hard life, in some ways. It's definitely nice to wake up and have no schedule, no responsibilities, no one telling you what to do and when to do it. But it's not nice to eat canned beans and raw peanuts everyday. It's not nice to worry about spending more than $3 on food and water in a day. It's not nice to have no fridge, no bathroom, no power source. It's not nice to be cold and uncomfortable and alone at night.
So what do we do? Sell our time for some comfort? Or live in absolute integrity, our "ultimate truth"? At my current job, I look at my boss. He's an entrepreneur, he owns the company. But I don't see him as much less of a wage slave than I am. He works 12 to 16 hour days, he spends all his time thinking about his business. Sure, he has no one telling him what to do, but his life is still a massive grind, with very little time for self-improvement and self-care. And why does he do it? Same reason I work for him: money.
Of course, some folks, like Leo, have managed to make money doing what they truly love. But still, Leo probably has days where he wakes up and doesn't want to make a video or manage his website or coach a client or whatever. He's even mentioned in videos that he's not always sure if continuing Actualized.org is the right decision for him. And yet he still creates content, he still promotes Patreon, he still sells his book-list and courses. Why? Money. Sure, he loves his work, but in a perfect world wouldn't he just give everything for free and never ask for money simply because he loves it so much? Sure, but he needs money to survive, so he can't really do that.
To conclude, my main question is this: Is it really possible to escape wage slavery? Unless you're a high-ranking "Illuminati" member (assuming something like that even exists) who can literally just print money, or someone who has so much money they can just toss it in an index fund and never work again... how does one escape wage slavery and is it even possible?
