Misery & Suffering at Work — Why it Happens and Why Competence is the Only Answer

0:12 This is not an uncommon situation. What you just described is actually the default situation for people. First, it's worth recognizing there is an implicit point here that perhaps is worth making explicit and questioning is does it need fixing at all? Because the implicit point is yes, this needs to be fixed. That's what anybody would say or think.

0:50 But I would say first start by asking yourself does this need to be fixed and to what degree does this need to be fixed and the reason to like explicitly explore it versus assuming it needs to be fixed is that everything is a trade. So again just to generalize the situation the situation is that okay I'm doing some work and the work has some positives also is accompanied with meaningful significant pain and doesn't give me that sense of connectedness and doesn't give me that sense of perpetual joy and so perhaps feels less than worthwhile and I am not quite certain or sure like what I should do and how I might go about doing what I should do. Right? So that's the gist of the situation. Actually it's the default state for everyone or almost everyone.

1:50 The observation that this is a trade is a very important observation which is like do you want to live in civilized society and do you want to enjoy the benefits that living in civilized society offers and do you recognize the benefits that living in civilized society offers and do you appreciate those benefits? Now all of those questions are for you to decide what the right answer is because not everybody is the same. So the answer need not be the same for everyone but it's a very important question. For instance, I can bring it back to myself.

2:26 Do I want to live in civilized society? Absolutely. So if I want to live in civilized society now I have to accept the trade of okay here are all the benefits I get of living in civilized society and I appreciate those benefits and because I appreciate these benefits well isn't it a natural law that I'll have to give something in return and okay so what is Is it that I'm giving in return?

3:01 Well, it's the pain, right? I am bearing the pain. I am bearing this suffering, whatever this suffering is from idiots at work, from the politics that happens at work, from yeah, just all the hilarity and the tragedy of what goes on in every company. Yes, it causes suffering. Yes, it causes pain. Yes, it causes a sense of disconnectedness with my true self, true essence, etc.

3:38 Absolutely. But on the whole, am I seeing all the benefits that I acrew as a result of this suffering? And am I fine with that trade? So that's like the first level which again like nobody explores that. It's a very reasonable thing to explore and I'm not going to say what the answer is for you because again the answer may be different but I think if one does an honest analysis of this many people will will conclude that yeah there is going to be some pain there's going to be some suffering you could even take it to I don't know like ancient times when like office politics did not exist when all these companies did not exist organizations did not exist and we were just whatever hunter gatherers. Wait, so there wasn't any pain then? Like really? Was everybody very blissful?

4:36 Well, absolutely not. You didn't know where your next food is going to come from. You had to go weeks hungry. People died around you, left and right, including loved ones. And hey, human beings around you were like extremely brutal, right? Okay. What do you think? The caveman was blissful all the time. No, absolutely not. Did they not have suffering? Maybe there was a little bit of you know lack of self-pity around that. So actually that was a feature. You just took it as part of life and therefore there was a little bit less suffering but there was definitely pain like intense pain. Right? The only reason I mention this is like you can play this out throughout human history. There is pain, there is suffering. This is not any new news, right? Buddha said it like thousands of years ago. So yeah, there is pain, there is suffering. Are you okay with the trade you're making? That is the question. All right. So why does this direction help some people? So society has like basically successfully created an illusion and many of us believe the illusion. The illusion is that your life needs to be perfect and can be perfect and so like any imperfection we find now we like it kind of creates anxiety. It's creates stress within us.

6:07 And so, and again, I'm not saying everybody has to subscribe to this philosophy at all, but what I am saying is that consider to what degree, cuz you'd also mentioned that you'd been doing a lot of things in your life because of just society and the expectations and the commands and the suggestions and the recommendations made to you by society including education and vocation and and all of those other things.

6:39 Okay. Do you realize that you are also being fooled by society right now? By the way, being super blissful in your work is just an artificial construct that has literally been created in the last 20 years. So, it's very recent phenomenon. It's a complete like it's a dream and not all dreams are true, right? So it's worth considering that for that reason cuz one can then perhaps develop a higher degree of maturity to see work for what it is. Okay. So we can now bring this to competence because ultimately competence is your best key to joy.

7:29 Cuz what I'm hearing is there is no joy or there is little joy. And so ultimately it goes back to competence. Everything goes back to competence. There are basically two factors to consider. One is have you picked a vocation at which you can be highly competent and second if yes then are you highly competent? Are you getting increasingly competent at it? Because yes, work is never going to be perfect and in fact it's going to be painful etc etc. But if those conditions are true, if those two conditions are true, then couple of things will happen. Number one, it provides an adequate counterbalance to all the pain and suffering. Not just passive counterbalance but also an active one in that you will be able to resist the pain. You will be able to prevent some of the pain. You'll be able to manipulate the system skillfully in a way that it doesn't create the pain and the suffering. So that's one aspect of why competence matters. The other aspect of why competence matters and it's the main thing that matters in this joy thing.

8:47 You know, we are just programmed to get joy out of things that we are competent at. And so it's not like what they say, oh the thing I love. Most people if if they made their hobby their job, they would hate it. It's not the activity, it's the fact that it's a job is why you hate it, right? But if you're competent at it, it kind of provides that active counterbalance to the pain and suffering. So that's why competence matters. But the third reason competence matters is as you get more and more competent like it has to show up in your work. It has to show up in the results of whatever it is that you're working on. And then ultimately it has to show up in terms of payoff to you personally.

9:38 Again logically it has to. And so as it shows up in terms of payoff to you personally that starts to give you greater optionality optionality to pursue things that perhaps are more aligned and that thing can be a different company or a different title or a different type of career progression than the typical one. Whatever the case might be a different geography for you if that's what you care about. Again everybody's situation is different. their desires are different but what is true is it'll give you more optionality. So the competence is what brings that optionality and as you create that optionality now you perhaps are at a place where you can opt out entirely if you want right that is part of the optionality you get.

10:34 So in that sense, you can kind of like do both, right? You can still function and live in civilized society and gain all of its benefits while minimizing some or plenty of the downsides. But all of that is grounded in competence. Now, is it grounded in luck? Yes. But then like what what are you going to do? Try to get more lucky? So yes, luck is a factor. like we can't do much with that factor but we can do potentially more with competence. So ultimately the answer to this question is competence and it is not an answer anybody likes or most people don't like that answer but it is the only correct answer to this question because if there were a more correct answer to this question like I said everybody is in this situation nearly everybody is in this exact situation right it's just like the different thing is you just vocalized it. Nobody else does.

11:37 And so logically, if there were an easier escape from it, then many people would have already found it. But look around, people haven't found it. They're still stuck, right? So even if one doesn't like the answer that competence is the key, it's worth considering it before dismissing it.