Despite All your Rage

You Are Still in a White Collar Cage

If you're following an established career path, the low perceived risk is DIRECTLY offset by a comparably steep ladder to climb. The price you pay for certainty is blood, sweat, tears, and STRESS.

This is because most people will invest ZERO sustained effort unless the return is certain or the potential upside is absurd. So the vast majority of white collar effort in our economy ends up being channeled towards zero sum fields like law, finance, or modern medicine, or towards startups that have nearly zero chance of working out.

The risk of ending up in a "low risk" field exceeds the mental and physical anguish caused by the job requirements. One of the biggest risks is being surrounded by people who think this tradeoff is sensible. You might be somewhat open minded, but your colleagues are, for the most part, risk averse losers who are deathly scared to think outside the box.

While you can gain valuable training working in one of these fields for a short period of time, once you're in, it's very hard to leave. Your ego ends up getting wrapped up into your position. You think people think you're successful because you're an Associate or VP at Prestigious White Shoe Company, Inc. And you've been so busy working these last few years, you haven't had time to contemplate what you'd do outside your existing line of work.

But the longer you stay, the harder it is to imagine yourself doing anything else. The more atrophied the creative hunter in you becomes. 10 years in that environment and you've become a captured animal, fit for life at a zoo where you're obedience is rewarded by measured, regularly scheduled feedings.

Of course the price you pay is the frustration that the primal side of you has never been expressed. You are, in fact, a caged animal with the repressed desire to be let free. And repressed emotions always get expressed somewhere.

Whether you take it out on your wife, your kids, or even yourself, it's simply unrealistic to think that you can get away with harboring that resentment forever. You need a channel for primal expression. For some it's the gym. For others its the bar. In many ways your longterm happiness and success depends on how healthy the channel you select for primal expression is.