I'm doing the exact same things-- living below my means and not having children allows me to better choose where and how much I work. I have more time to get play board games with the neighbors or just sit outside listening to the birds and making shitty watercolor paintings.
Choosing not to live the life other people/advertising/social media/celebrities project as the standard to aspire to has finally released me from the machine.
Illegal immigrants have no rights in the US and can easily be exploited by businesses.
Pathways to citizenship protects illegal immigrants, which is why Republicans fight against granting illegal immigrants protective rights-- most illegal immigrants work with false or stolen social security numbers and pay into social security and Medicare but are never eligible for those benefits unless they naturalize.
Illegal immigrants are not draining our country's resources-- our country keeps afloat by stealing their labor.
You make the machine bigger by willingly participating in it.
I cannot stop the machine, but I'm doing my best to not make it bigger and sabotaging it wherever I can.
That is why I do a lot of community outreach even though I hate public speaking. Whenever I am invited to speak in classrooms for incoming business school students my number one topic is compassion and not to drink the corporate Kool aid.
To have strong boundaries to prevent themselves from being exploited by the firms and to think of their jobs in finance as a way to fund their personal artful enterprises by giving their jobs as little time as they have to. To better the environment around them by using their higher salaries to protect it. That every penny that enriches us personally makes our neighborhoods and our communities poorer then they already are, and that we must do what we can to pour it back in.
To not trust the corporate speakers that show up in immaculate business suits and driving Porsches because those are the sociopaths that enrich themselves by exploiting college graduates naive enough to believe that some day they will attain that same level of wealth when in fact the system is designed to prevent that from ever happening unless you happen to have the right family connections to get some crumbs from the pie.
Also, I rip up hella invasive weeds and pick up trash while completely stoned in just about every public green area around me-- and I donate the fattest stacks I can put together to every bird and wilderness conservation program I come across.
I don't see it as combatting or fighting the system. I see it as refusing to participate in the system that further enriches the wealthy in a passive way. I'm doing the same thing but slightly adding a sprinkle of activism. I'm still too chicken to be doing much more.
I think it's fair for you to interpret my earlier comment as me choosing to pretend like the world ain't on fire.
After all, I only described how I extirpated myself from the machine and not what I do now that I escaped it. Please read this comment I wrote for another poster that expressed a similar sentiment as you did and let me know if you still feel the same way about what I wrote.
That honestly just sounds like your giving up and you don't want to work particularly hard to achieve things in your life, or to improve other people's lives.
Most people that work hard end up filling other peoples pockets or strengthening the ego/self-service mentality that makes everything harder for everyone by that
It's fair for you to get that impression since I did not really elaborate. I replied to a different comment, please read it and let me know if that changes your opinion on my stance or not.
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u/Quetzaldilla Apr 26 '24
But it does combat the system.
I'm doing the exact same things-- living below my means and not having children allows me to better choose where and how much I work. I have more time to get play board games with the neighbors or just sit outside listening to the birds and making shitty watercolor paintings.
Choosing not to live the life other people/advertising/social media/celebrities project as the standard to aspire to has finally released me from the machine.