Imagine a world where everyone does what they love as a job. How do people spend their time? Are they as stressed out? How do they interact- are they interested in each other?
On this journey we’ve been illuminating ways that people are being themselves and expressing their true natural inspiration productively. After traveling and meeting people for two and a half months, I’m thoroughly convinced a shift toward this new way of living and working is underway. I also think it’s an entirely possible and complete solution for a balance between people and the world around them. Here’s a little bit about why.
A healthy society provides everyone with the opportunity for basic human rights and needs such as food, shelter and freedom. In America these are now derived primarily from money, since it allows you to purchase food and shelter and have the security to develop freedom. People each earn this money through doing something that someone else deems worthwhile enough to pay for.
Makes perfect sense; if I want others to help support me, I provide them something they find worthwhile in exchange. What’s evolving rapidly now is which things people find worthwhile. We’re realizing that intangibles like love, friendship, fun and understanding have more to do with living the life we want than possessions or materials*. This simple shift of values from material to experience is placing an enormous amount of pressure on our current job infrastructure.
When people value material consumption it’s easy to justify spending lots of time doing something you may not love in order to get a new car, a new house, healthcare, toys for children, etc. However, when experience is more valued this model breaks down, since experience depends on time and spending all day at work is a high cost.
There are a few ways we’ve found that most people adapt to fit into this infrastructure. One: find a job out there that really calls to them (lucky!). Two: accept a job they don’t love and use the support it gives them to spend their free time exploring their passion and fostering others. Three: pursue entrepreneurial or artistic means of making money by using their passion. Four: find a 4-hour-workweek style means of earning enough to support the lifestyle they care about with little effort.
For now, these ways aren’t so bad at all. The shift to valuing experience over material always leads to more happiness, since experience is the one thing all people share all the time and is more core to being alive. However, I think that in the next three to seven years we’re going to reach a tipping point that’s going to push our culture much more toward a passionate people paradise. In that place, I’d bet it’s common that people’s job titles are their own names.
* Of course, these realizations have been happening for all of human history. What’s different now is their widespread and mainstream nature and humans’ ability to generate more than enough material for everyone due to the power of 21st century technology.