When I was a kid, my mother used to say there are two kinds
of worker, one is slave worker and another is working for self. The superficial
meaning of the statement says if you work for somebody, you are a slave.
However, it was not the point my mother wanted to make. We all have to work for
others, even an entrepreneur also has to work for other stake holders. Work is
a service we do to fulfill the needs of people. The better we fulfill their
needs, better we are paid. Fulfilling their need means we are working for them,
isn’t it?
Then, who is a slave worker in this 21st century?
A slave worker is a person who thinks he is a slave, he doesn’t want to work
but his condition or whatever the reason compels him to work, the work he
doesn’t want to do at all. He works only for the money, and therefore he does
only those things his master told him to do.
It may not be possible to own a company, but there is always
a possibility to own my job. If we do not own our job, it simply means we are a
slave. Nobody can make us slave; it is our attitude that makes us slave. We are
misguided by our society which gives more importance to tangible and
materialistic things. We think the person who owns a lot of money is the real
owner or the most independent person. But it is not. In reality the most
independent person is the one who owns himself.
An independent person owns his work, he has his own personal
goal and he works for it. He controls the situation, he doesn’t allow situation
to decide his life. He doesn’t work just for bread and butter. His self dignity
is so high that he doesn’t allow others to make him feel small. Remember slaves
do not have self dignity. He is not afraid of being different. But it doesn’t
mean he is arrogant. Whether you are a slave or an independent person is not
decided by for whom you work, it is decided by how you work.
