An Alien View on Earthly Success

I’ve looked at the world situation lately, and I have a few thoughts on what success truly means by thinking about a hypothetical situation. If an alien being who was a civilizational historian by occupation landed in my backyard while I was gazing at the stars and writing, and they asked me my thoughts on how humans work on our planet because they were studying how civilizations utilize their labor potential—what type of essay would I write to them?

How would I start?

The Corporate Ladder’s Rungs Slowly Reach to the Skies

I’ve never been one to believe in the idea of the corporate ladder, where working slowly over time will lead you to a promised land that seems like an illusion, if I’m being honest. The right path for me, therefore, doesn’t mean it’s the right path for someone else, and not all humans agree with what it is we must do.

There’s no genuine success if you’re not fulfilled in what you’re doing. I don’t see things that way, and probably never will see things that way.

How can success be defined by what somebody else places for you to do? Doesn’t it make more sense, using the example of a jungle, that you should carve your own path with your own blade instead of taking a path that was already laid out for you?

Now, it might seem counterintuitive to say that, but think about it. It is still a jungle, so the threats aren’t immediately erased because someone else made a path for you. Your intuition would keep you alive far better than trusting the allegedly safe path.

You’re the one creating the path through the jungle versus something that somebody else already laid out for you. That seems easy, but I think the harder path is more fulfilling. Plus, what if they didn’t kill the jaguars hiding in the shadows and left it all up to you anyway?

True success in this world is not measured by our corporate aspirations or the path laid out.

I refuse to believe that.

Now, corporate work works for some people. I’m just not one of those people who believes in it.

Taking roads less traveled, whether you do it on the side or full-time, is the best way forward. It always made no sense to me to do something simply because that’s what you’re supposed to do.

Do what you have to do, stay humble, and don’t draw extra attention to yourself. That’s the way to be.

The normal path people expect to take makes me curious why we accept it. The alien, at this point, might be intrigued by what I consider a better way.

Finding something you can do for yourself will always let you win, whether it’s on the side or full-time. Why not try something? Why not do something productive? Make something with your hands, your mind, your voice—whatever it may be.

Find what it is inside you that gives you that spark, and chase that, because that will lead you to delight.

When you chase a spark, a spark ignites a flame, and the flame sets your life ablaze with the glory that you’re looking for, while the “safe” path seems to cause perpetual rain with no flame to be kindled in the first place.

Doing things the corporate and slow way, it would take you hundreds of thousands of years to save up a 500-billion-dollar net worth, which means people who don’t take the laid-out path seem to understand something about work others do not. Wealth is not something that comes out of slow saving and hoping for a raise.

How Things Should Be

And don’t just create a job for yourself if you’re trying to do something on the side, because that makes almost zero sense.

“I have to do eight hours of work because that’s what I always did.” No, if you’re doing things yourself—even if it is on the side—that line of thinking fizzles out to dust motes of misunderstanding.

Doing something on your own can be done at 1:00 a.m. if you’d like it to happen then.

Instead, say, “All right, this week I’ve got 20 hours. How can I make $200,000 in those 20 hours?”

That makes a lot more sense. And the more impossible something seems, the more you find unconventional ways to make it happen.

Are you understanding my theory of labor, Mr. Galaxy-crosser?

Our lives are not meant to be spent punching a clock, going through the motions, and just existing.

We’re meant to do something with our gifts in this world.

Take the time you have available after you’re done with work for the day and after the family duties are fulfilled to survey what you have available to you to make something happen. It doesn’t even have to be anything fancy.

Pragmatism Is Fine, Until It Isn’t

Artistic writing is fun for me. I love doing it. But at the same time, I have to be pragmatic and do something else with it while still using the gift. It’s not that it’s any less valuable, and yeah, I would prefer to just do artistic work, but you have to do what you have to do to make a living.

There is no shame in that.

I would never think to talk down to people who only choose to make a living, or maybe who want to keep their work and home separate. What I mean is, whatever path you decide to take, it doesn’t mean you’re mistaken for it—but there could be something in life that feels correct for you.

No one else can tell you what that is, but if you see this, you’ll never unsee it.

Think about this. Ruminate on what I’m about to say, Mr. Alien.

Let’s say Henry’s working in an office and he gets paid a salary. And let’s say his salary equates to about $40 an hour.

No matter how hard or how easily Henry works, he will always make that $40 an hour.

So, for Henry, does it make sense to continue doing that and slave away and work extra, extra hard to get no return from it? But if he put the same energy into his bakery business and slaved away at that instead, what if that would fulfill him so much more because he was fulfilling orders for people instead of working for a check?

I find people don’t always understand this concept, so I hope you do.

No matter how hard you work at an hourly or salary rate, you’re not getting paid any more to do what you’re asked to do. And if there’s any spare time from working hard, you might get everyone else’s work put on you too. So working harder might backfire on you.

Not that I’m against working hard. Being a spacefaring civilization, you might have robots that do everything, but Earth isn’t there yet.

What I’m trying to say is, when you become a creator and create something, that something can then multiply into many things.

The wise King Solomon (a political figure from our ancient past on Earth) once said, “Scatter in seven or eight because you do not know what will befall the world.” That’s a paraphrase, but my point is that the safe path doesn’t seem very safe.

The verse itself follows:

“Give a portion to seven, or even to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth” (Ecclesiastes 11:2 [ESV]).

Maybe have the day job and work on something else at night and then invest in other businesses where you can. That’s three and not seven, but still more than one.

And the biggest irony of the whole thing to me is that entrepreneurs are the ones who are paying the employees to begin with, most times.

So it really works for everyone, whether it’s on the side or their main thing. It doesn’t matter what you think about people who chase after something besides employment, because when an employee gets paid, they’re being paid by the entrepreneur who took the risk (most times, barring the government or nonprofits).

So no matter what, it works for everyone. Whether you yourself are the entrepreneur is irrelevant. It is still working for everyone.

There is safety in the normal path, yet the risk is still the same, because the risk you’re avoiding is something the person who pays you is taking to pay you.

I wish more people understood this. But you’re from a planet many light-years away, so you might. It might take an unconventional mind to “get it.”

There’s no secret sauce. There’s no magic formula. There are no initiation rites you have to go through.

You can make it work for you in as large or small a capacity as you desire.

Let’s say a person of our species is an ex-con who spent 20 years in jail. Well, your job prospects probably look horrible, but you can get out of there and start something for yourself with the skill set you have and do something, because employment rewards passivity and a clean record, and passivity will never get you where risks will take you—even if your past risks were mistakes.

I’m not saying that being an employee is evil, but rather, we should always focus on that which gets us the best results for the least amount of effort in order to actually get ahead.

That does not mean being lazy. Working on your own might take twelve hours out of your day, but concurrently, it might be three days of that and the rest free.

You might take 20 hours of work for your week and the rest off. That’s not possible at a company. If you want to work one day at 8:00 a.m. and another at 1:30 a.m., you are able.

It’s Similar to What?!

Now I’ll be the first to say I’m nowhere near an expert in economics or how these things function at the largest scales, but I know employment is not as old as ancient methods of work, and the thing that it closely aligns with is actually not something you should aspire to be in the modern era if you can help it.

Are you following me, Mr. Cosmonaut? Perhaps your society also had such a system in the past.

If you really do some digging into the ancient world, employment sort of looks like being in indentured servitude to an ancient master, and that doesn’t seem quite right to me.

It never has.

Closing Thoughts to Take Back to Your Planet

To clarify, I don’t believe that how someone approaches work makes them important in the sense of who they are, but I do believe we should look at examples of people who have taken risks and changed the world for it.

Meaning the people who, when no one was paying attention, when nobody knew who they were, kept showing up every single day, knocking on those doors every single day, writing those words every single day.

It didn’t matter.

They kept going.

Musicians—underground musicians especially—just keep going. They don’t stop.

They do what they have to do after the day job, and then, if they don’t want a regular label, there are options these days to be indie, and that’s perfectly fine.

No matter how it all works out for you, there’s always something greater out there than aspiring to work for somebody else or be under their thumb for the rest of your life.

But hold on a moment. Maybe you enjoy your place at another company, and that’s fine. Fill the rest of the time you have outside of those 20 hours you set aside with another stream of income.

I’m not saying that traditional workers are negative, so don’t take me out of context, but what I am saying is that there is always a better way to do things, or even a supplemental way.

We used to think that a horse and plow was the correct way, but now we have farm equipment that is far more efficient, far more effective, and gets better results.

My imagination runs wild thinking about how a spacefaring civilization does things.

I suggest people shouldn’t think in archaic ways anymore.

There is nothing wrong with supporting your family. It is one of the noblest things a man or woman can do.

Single mothers will always have my respect. Fathers who stay will always have my respect.

What I am saying, though, is we need to be prepared to look at our lives and say, “Is this really what I should do right now, or is there something greater I should aspire to get to? What can I do with the resources I currently have that will get me the life I want?”

And I’m not trying to give generic self-help advice, because personally I believe in God-help, not self-help. But if God gives you the gifts that you have, you should be able to use those gifts to make a difference in this world somehow.

It may not be as big as somebody else’s imprint, but the impact will be far bigger if you do things the right way.

And I don’t mean that what I’m saying is even the right way for another human being, but I am saying the right way for them is something they should investigate for themselves.

Whatever it is you think you have to do, reevaluate, recalibrate, and make sure you’re on the correct path and that your compass is pointing north.

Because if the surrounding magnetic field (metaphorical) is off, your compass will not point north.

People should look within themselves to understand what their north is, though.

So find your north. Find what it is you want your compass to point to, and get the best results doing that.

This isn’t to put anyone down, but I think conventional might not be the correct choice when it comes to understanding how we can best impact the world.

And I don’t know about your race, but I think having fulfillment and purpose in your life while also making a living is something we should all aspire to have, because it makes us happier people.

We are happiest when we are in our element, when we are doing things we love—not when we are doing something because some guy who doesn’t know us very well, and whom we don’t know very well, told us to.

Just because you know somebody in slivers and they’re your taskmaster doesn’t mean they have your best interests at heart.

I think there are solutions to doing better. It’s up to us to find them for ourselves, obviously.

I hope this alien point of view helps you on your path, even if a little.