Time to Compete!

I’m a naturally laid-back person: part of me hates work. I enjoy writing, I enjoy organizing political, social and educational events, I enjoy the various roles I play at Fountain House from office worker to clubhouse standards analyst to literary promoter of clubhouse values, but in regard to having a role in the marketplace, I have no idea what I should be doing.

And I think that part of the reason for my professional stagnancy has been my attitude about work: I really dislike ordinary wage work. Nevertheless, we all have to grow up sometime and now my time has come. I have to get psyched about work, about economic competition, about making it in America. So, my game plan is as follows:

I will return to doing messenger work in order to put a few bucks in my pocket while I experiment with other types of work.

I will also join a temple, partly for spiritual reasons, but also because I want to do volunteer work for a Jewish organization, the type of work that might lead to paid employment, either at the organization at which I volunteer or at some other place in the nonprofit world. I’m thinking of starting with part-time work with flexible hours, so that I don’t endanger my benefits and then move on from there, if I have the capacity. And on the side, I’ll pursue freelance writing.

But I must think about having a work ethic and a desire to compete because that’s what the American workforce is about: hard work and competition. And I think that I can compete because, though I have been a Marxist for decades, I do enjoy competition. I certainly enjoy sports competition, even though I’m at best a mediocre athlete, so why can’t I translate that competitive passion into being a worker?

The time has come to find a decent job and make money. For me, this change is better late than never.

Craig R. Bayer