Get a job you hate.

This one is about the normalization of greed.

When you think about greed, I’d imagine your brain drifts towards Jeff Bezos or Donald Trump or some other bazillionaire. I’d agree. I think they’re pretty greedy. But thats not what I’d like to discuss.

I’ll start with some reflecting that been doing. I’ve decided that I don’t want to sell anything that I create. I’ve been thinking about art and how we decide on pricing it. The goal seems to be to get the price as high as someone is willing to pay for it. Premium products are created with the intention of being sold well above their true worth. We inflate value through limiting supply and increasing demand. Everyone in this space seems to want to get the biggest bang for their buck. Those who figure out how to succeed at banging bucks then transition into commodifying their ability to do so. They create courses, sell advice, write books, garner views for profit. We’ve turned what could be a space for unfettered passion and joyful creation into a space where our joy is twisted into a selling point to turn a profit.

I get it, the reality of true unfettered passionate creation for most people is that is just not economically feasible. We justify the commodification of our work as a way to sustain it financially. If we weren’t making money from it, we wouldn’t be able to afford to do it in the first place. I, however, beg to differ. I have a job outside of the creative work that I do. It’s a full time job in a boring industry that I’d consider almost anti fulfilling. However, it pays my bills and then some. It allows me the opportunity to create by providing the financial backing for it. I think about leaving this job and focusing fully on my passions almost everyday, but i’ve decided that the creative freedom it gives me is just too good to give up. I could start selling my work to sustain it, but then I’d have priced someone out of my market. I don’t want a market, I just want my work to get out there.

I’ve put myself in a position where I’m able to afford giving my work away. The world needs more people who are willing to get out there and just give things away. Give away your time to those who need it more. Give away your money to those who need it more. Give away your art to those who need it more. Maybe it’s not even about giving to those who need it more, but just giving in general. Make a sacrifice to be able to give. Don’t feed into the normalization of “getting your piece of the action”. Create the action and try your hardest not to commodify it. Become wealthy if you wish, but maybe don’t use your art to do so. Use your wealth to sustain your ability to create, and avoid using your ability to create as a crutch for your wealth.

I honestly think this is the greed we should be most worried about. It’s not obvious and it seeps into society quietly, killing everything we once regarded as good. Let’s be the ones to force back this creep. Stop profiting, make a sacrifice for something you love, and put your passion out into the world at a cost that doesn’t commodify it. if you really love what you create, you’d get a job you hate to sustain it.

Jeff Bezos may have a shit ton of money, but let’s be real, we’re really the ones negatively impacting the greed we claim to be so against.