The Salary Debate

 

For many years, I have seen the quote “Salary is the bribe they give you to forget your dreams’ used countless times by many different people. This morning, part of a friend's status message read ‘Don’t bury your vision because of job. The job was never meant to be a permanent take but it’s established for those who have a vision but lacking funds, can raise funds through their jobs, resign and pursue their vision’.

These quotes and many like them have troubled me greatly because it is filled with many false assumptions and by buying into this kind of thinking many people have been led into great ruin; driving people who otherwise would have fulfilled their vision in a corporate environment into the street & poverty. Yeah, I have seen people with well-paying jobs, who resign to ‘pursue their dreams’, then falter and end up in penury. Some have hastily left the country in search of greener pastures only to be trapped in an endless cycle of regrets. You may even know someone who fits the bill.

These sorts of statements are pushing people into self-employment but unfortunately, they are based on false assumptions as discussed and debunked below.

Everyone has a vision that can make them very rich!

The concept of success has been bastardized. It’s now all about money, money, money!!!! Success is not about being materially rich only and not all visions or dreams can be monetized.

Life purposes built around service to God and to people may not lend themselves readily to profit. This purpose may be expressed through occupations such as Social Worker, Preacher, Teacher, etc. There are so many school proprietors, Churches or NGO Owners that we can have and indeed, most of the people who enter into some of these vision-inspired occupations take a ‘vow of poverty’ and it is perfectly ok!

Think about it, how many people’s vision can feed them when it is actualized in a self-employment setting? I know someone who is a Painter, and who for over 30 years has struggled to make ends meet. He is happy with what he does and considers himself successful and I agree but where is the money? Some Painters are in salaried employment and are rich materially! If you examine the visions of 1 million people, you may not see up to 1,000 that can feed a family let alone make one rich in a self-employment setting!

Pursuing your vision or dreams is to become entrepreneurial and that can only be achieved when you are self-employed and running your own business.

Entrepreneurship can be expressed either in a private or corporate setting. Everyone who works is an entrepreneur – traders of skills, talent, and competencies. Some choose to sell to one person or organization in an employment relationship; others chose to sell to many people or businesses as business owners. No stress which you choose, be entrepreneurial that’s all.

You can not become rich with a Salary

Some people have actually stated that! Well, around the world, some many billionaires & millionaires are employees in companies and corporations such as FaceBook, Google, Alibaba, Tesla, Coca Cola & so on. You may have heard of the staggering millions of Dollars paid to Chief Executives and their teams – those guys are employees living their dreams on salaries!

It is the 8 hours of work that is preventing you from realizing your vision

We have 24 hours in a day. Let’s allocate 8 hours to sleep and 8 to ‘salaried work’. That leaves an unaccounted 8 hours to pursue your dreams and visions but these motivational speakers will tell you that what is pulling you down is the 8 hours you spend at work. Lies!!! If you have a dying vision, it is because of the free 8 hours you blow away. (As well as the time within the 8 hours of work that you are unoccupied but you choose to waste in meaningless gossip and idling, and perhaps the time you could save from unneeded sleep).

Work is slavery except you are self-employed

The people who parrot this fallacy, deceiving many other people are employers of labour; are they enslaving others?

It is the work environment that is preventing you from realizing your vision

Have you heard of nestled vision? What about ‘Tie your wagon to a star’?  

Sometimes you need the environment of an organization to achieve your vision. They are not mutually exclusive but can be complementary. The Corporation with its enormous resources in technology and people has helped a lot of inventors and innovators to prosper. If your employment is paying you well remain there (same as if your standard of living is top-notch in your home country, don’t run abroad & become a suffering visionary).

Honestly, there are people whose best bet in life is to work as employees. Will they be happy & fulfilled? Very perfectly & many that I know are rich, some superbly!

My advice for salaried people who wish to pursue another dream or vision is this: Consider the salary as an incentive to pursue your dreams. Utilize the unaccounted 8 hours, sleep less, use all the ‘downtime and free time at the workplace to work on your vision and when this is not enough, you may move to part-time work provided you have a path to pay for your needs. If your vision can take care of all your needs at this point you may then disengage from salaried work. Please don’t entrench poverty and misery in the name of pursuing a vision.

Whatever you do, don’t let anyone hustle you into the street with fanciful words until you are ready, and you have counted the cost of becoming self-employed. If you choose to sell your talents to an organization on paid employment, don’t let anyone make you feel inferior and lost. If the job doesn’t pay you well and doesn’t allow you to grow or pursue more dreams, you may consider a change of employment but do not jump into the street if it is best you remained salaried.

If you decide to start up a business, see some tips on how you can succeed in the link below.

HOW TO RAISE MONEY TO FINANCE A BUSINESS

Image credit: https://www.vecteezy.com/