Member-only story
The Real Reason for the Great Resignation
Our Day Jobs Are Killing Us
The Great Resignation is the media’s spin on a new trend. People leaving their jobs by the millions.
Everywhere you go, there’s a help wanted sign. Often next to a sign claiming that workers are lazy and would rather stay home eating Cheetos than come to work.
This is a huge trend. Impossible to boil it down to a single reason. In reality, there are many. But the media is failing to mention the most important one.
Modern work is inherently unsatisfying, boring, and deadly.
Boring Jobs Kill You
We live in a society where 99% of people hate their day jobs. How they spend a third of their entire lives.
And we never stop to question it.
Imagine catching a lion. And putting it in a cage at the zoo.
It’ll make more money that way. The lion doesn’t make money in nature. But it will live a miserable existence in that cage.
This is what we’ve done to ourselves in modern society. Human beings are animals after all. We built civilization to protect ourselves. But somewhere along the way, protection became a trap.
We accepted the change. It was a promise. That work would get easier and lives would get better. This is exactly what the experts predicted at the time.
British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted a significantly shorter work week. Technology was getting better every day. He expected his grandkids to have a 15-hour work week and live materially better lives.
But the opposite came true.
We work more now than ever. And all the material goods in the world cannot bring us happiness.
It’s called the hedonic treadmill. No matter how good your life gets, you will get used to it. That’s why saving up for that sports car won’t make you a happier person if you hate the job that paid for it.
But we’ve collectively shut our eyes to the truth. There is no room for human nature in modern society. And that’s why most people are opting out.
