Does your security come from being safe or being free?

September 4th, 2012 by Agent Kevin Miller

chains

Today I had lunch with a dear friend who is at the end of his rope. He’s got a high profile job with a top Fortune 500 company. Nice house. Beautiful, supporting wife. Three great boys. They have everything money can buy.

And his soul is dying.

“If I stay here another 15 years, I’ll be the exact same guy I am now.” The job provides $$$$. That’s it. The majority of his life is devoted to making $$$$ and nothing else. Nothing. To make it worse, God has put a huge passion on his heart. His wife shares it too. Even his young kids. This passion is not about money. It’s not about anything our culture glorifies. It’s not even IN this country. It makes no sense in regards to the ‘American Dream’. And few will ever support them in going after the yearning of their hearts because it’s not a financially founded decision. Yet he says “I’d clean toilets if we could just be there.”

Personally, I’m praying for a sewer eruption of epic proportions…
If you’d rather hear the show where I expanded on this topic:Right-click to download / Listen or subscribe via iTunes

Throughout the 1800s, most people were farmers, field hands and skilled craftsmen. Trading, trapping, fishing, metalworking and selling merchandise were other common early 19th century occupations for men.

Then Henry Ford developed the assembly line and mass production and lured scores of men away from their farms to an easier job and increased & consistent pay. When World War II came and there was a lack of men to fill the now flourishing slots, women were invited in. Quickly, individual moral in big industry (corporate) declined due to many things:

  • Monotonous labor,
  • People had been used to invigorating hard work,
  • The loss of “the thrill of victory and agony of defeat”,
  • The loss of close communion with family and friends,
  • Time INflexibility

…and much more.

So industry tried to add some of that back into the workplace. This is where we get ‘work culture’. It’s an artificial insemination of what used to be natural. Kind of like your Chocolate Covered Sugar Bomb cereal that’s ‘Fortified with 12 essential vitamins and iron’ (code for…we stripped all the nutrients out of what you’re eating making them basically packing peanuts and added artificial flavor and now some vitamin powder to it).

But hey, now people were making more money and could buy loads of the much more affordable ‘good things’ in life, made possibly by the very industries they’d given up the farm for and were now working at.

Less freedom and inspiration, but easier work and more material possessions.

Today it’s pretty much all we know. There are fewer and fewer ‘owners’ and more and more ‘employees’. Less freedom and more stuff. We all enjoy the same amenities in various levels from plastic to gold plated, but we all have them. Freedom is looked at as a luxury.

Interesting. Going back to a lifestyle of self-employment similar to our grandparents and great grandparents is a…selfish luxury. Being at home with family, working at something you are fully responsible for, having time flexibility and availability, owning your work…is a luxury. I thought the culture LEFT the pre-industrial lifestyle, for luxury.

Hmmm. What’s going on? Here are a few interesting resources to contemplate:

1913
Henry Ford creates the assembly line and mass workforce and great pay:
- read more

1933
‘Give a Man a Job’ by Jimmy Durante
- Thanks Eric Haselhorst for turning me on to this one

Around 1950
Dwight D. Eisenhower quote
*Photo from https://www.facebook.com/WhatTheMainStreetMediaWontTellYou

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1955
Tennessee Ernie Ford song, ‘Sixteen Tons’
- Theme song in ‘Joe vs the Volcano’ which I own thanks to Chris Sutton

1969
‘Henry and the Great Society’ book was written
- It’s a family favorite of ours, we’ve given away a case…but honestly, most people don’t like the message, so I’ll forewarn you. This link below is a free PDF of the entire book if you’re brave enough:
- http://bit.ly/PHW8N7

1999
The Matrix
- It’s a fictional movie. Or is it…?  I own this movie and believe the essence to be truth.

This blog was inspired by the Dwight D. Eisenhower quote. I think it profound. However, I’d also debate what security truly is. Is security in safety, or freedom?

What say you?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1026054025 Wendy Sutter-Staas

    Wow, Kevin, this hits right into . .. the heart!!! I use to think when I was little that I was the only human and everyone else was machines. .. LOL — so, when the Matrix came out, it was very fitting :) Now, here I am as an adult — I am one of the few and PROUD pure. . ALL AMERICAN human workers!!

    • http://www.freeagentacademy.com Kevin Miller

      A double shot of the blue pill

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1443792317 Christina Kaspersen

    This was an inspiring post. I’ve always felt that those lamenting the outsourcing of our mindless manufacturing jobs overseas were overlooking great opportunities for ingenuity and innovation. This was confirmed to me by Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind. The global economy is changing and we have to change with it. I hadn’t considered that the globalization of the economy is actually demanding that we return to our individualistic, pioneering roots. An important part of the equation – thanks for pointing it out.

    • http://twitter.com/esggraphics Eric Gale

      Nicely put! I’ve found Daniel Pink’s books to be very insightful.Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself is another good one. (http://amzn.to/Q08KlF)

      • http://www.freeagentacademy.com Kevin Miller

        That’s one of the resources that inspired ‘Free Agent Academy’ of course

    • http://www.freeagentacademy.com Kevin Miller

      Good point Christina, I hadn’t thought about that.

  • http://twitter.com/MadameMutant ShapeShifting Ninja

    Great post and I agree that a lot of us have lost the true meaning of living and living with purpose. By the way, could you put the full link to the pdf book, the one thats there is not complete and so takes me to a 404 page. Thanks and have a great day!

    • http://twitter.com/esggraphics Eric Gale

      That’s why people shouldn’t use spaces in their file names. I’ve shortened the URL, try this one. http://bit.ly/PHW8N7

      • http://www.freeagentacademy.com Kevin Miller

        Whoops…thanks Eric.

  • http://twitter.com/esggraphics Eric Gale

    Kevin, Thank you for the post.

    As some one who has recently experienced “a sewer eruption of epic proportions”, I can say that I’ve have taken the red pill.

    Your use of the Matrix clip made me think of earlier in the movie when Neo meets Morpheus and is given the choice between the red and blue pill. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCUhFZnxoBU)

    “You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe.You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”

    Just like after Neo takes the red pill and is pulled out of the Matrix, he is sick and disoriented (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4gfSiRkjlY),
    NEO:Why do my eyes hurt?
    MORPHEUS: You’ve never used them before.

    A lot of us will feel sick, disoriented, and in need of help when we first “leave the Matrix”. That’s where FAA, this blog, and mentoring are so important.

    Thanks for all you do.

    • http://www.freeagentacademy.com Kevin Miller

      Thanks so much for this Eric. You speak wisdom. It’s why I so often talk about this not being the ‘easy’ route. Yeah, that movie rocks my world. Thanks for letting me be a small part of your journey brother.

  • Vicki Hale

    Also: The Organization Man (1956), and The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit (1955)

    • http://www.freeagentacademy.com Kevin Miller

      I’ll have to check those out Vicki, thanks.

  • Terissa Miller

    Wow. I crave security, y’know? I want the comfort & ease of that steady paycheck, not having to worry about bills, not having to micro-manage the checking account. Nothing fancy, no swanky cars, or expensive jewelry, or name-brand clothes…just “one less thing to worry about” (like Forrest Gump says!).

    And yet. Am I willing to go thru hard seasons, frustrating seasons, micro-managing-the-checkbook seasons, so that we can have a life of FREEdom???

    I have to decide, ahead of time – that I can trust the process, accepting the ‘good gifts’ and the ‘perfecting gifts’ (James 1:16-18) – and let long suffering have its perfecting work in me…
    The end result will be freedom-of-lifestyle, like you’re talking about, AND a new freedom in my faith!

    So here we go. Can I walk the talk?
    (Lord, let my name be ‘Tenacious Teri’!!)

  • Craig Stevens

    Loved this post! I’ve been listening to the podcast for a while but I had to come to the blog and post when I heard this. I think as a whole we are unaware of what truly brings us joy. We try to find it in security, which for most equals money.

    When we became more of an industrial/informational society we began losing what made so many come alive, working with our hands, seeing the physical results of our work, helping someone face to face, etc.

    Look at what hobbies are the most popular now: Fishing, woodworking, sewing, cooking, gardening, exercising, hunting, working on cars…

    Why is that what we choose to spend our “free” time on? Because those or the things that are missing in our cubical feeled days!

    • http://www.freeagentacademy.com Kevin Miller

      Craig – glad I enticed you here…but thanks for being a podcast listener. Give us a review in iTunes if you would? I hear you on what you wrote here…thank you.

  • http://christopherbattles.net/ Christopher Battles

    Thank you sir Kevin. You podcast is great and the blog(shownotes) are wonderful.
    It really is about changing our view and seeing that security is not freedom. I was talking the other day about freedom in American. Every time another law is passed, freedom is lost. Yes it might be, “for the better of society”…well that is another topic.
    Seeing this and changing our vision is great, then it is realizing that this view will get rejected/not even thought about by many others.

    K, bye

    • http://www.freeagentacademy.com Kevin Miller

      Thank you as always Christopher. So grateful you got value from this. This perspective is not mainstream, but also good to realize there are MANY on this bandwagon. I’m sitting with two right now.

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