Wes Lawrence

“The decline of vocational education has meant that American employers can’t depend on a stream of employees with the specific skills they need. Employers have responded by “up-credentialing”—requiring college degrees for jobs that do not require college-delivered skills—as a way to weed out those who lacked the smarts or self-discipline to complete a college degree. This up-credentialing has two bad effects. Using college as a proxy for diligence and smarts, of course, disadvantages working-class kids who are smart and diligent but not college grads. It also means that a significant proportion of college grads do jobs that don’t really require college. As a result, a quarter of college grads and advanced degree holders will work for a lower median wage than associate degree holders.204”
― Joan C. Williams, White Working Class, With a New Foreword by Mark Cuban and a New Preface by the Author: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America

“Instead, he (and Epictetus and Seneca) focused on a series of questions not unlike the ones we continue to ask ourselves today: “What is the best way to live?” “What do I do about my anger?” “What are my obligations to my fellow human beings?” “I’m afraid to die; why is that?” “How can I deal with the difficult situations I face?” “How should I handle the success or power I hold?” These weren’t abstract questions. In their writings—often private letters or diaries—and in their lectures, the Stoics struggled to come up with real, actionable answers. They ultimately framed their work around a series of exercises in three critical disciplines: The Discipline of Perception (how we see and perceive the world around us) The Discipline of Action (the decisions and actions we take—and to what end) The Discipline of Will (how we deal with the things we cannot change, attain clear and convincing judgment, and come to a true understanding of our place in the world) By controlling our perceptions, the Stoics tell us, we can find mental clarity. In directing our actions properly and justly, we’ll be effective. In utilizing and aligning our will, we will find the wisdom and perspective to deal with anything the world puts before us. It was their belief that by strengthening themselves and their fellow citizens in these disciplines, they could cultivate resilience, purpose, and even joy. Born in the tumultuous ancient world,”
― Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living

“It’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working. And here, precisely, lies the mystery. In capitalism, this is precisely what is not supposed to happen. Sure, in the old inefficient Socialist states like the Soviet Union, where employment was considered both a right and a sacred duty, the system made up as many jobs as it had to. (This is why in Soviet department stores it took three clerks to sell a piece of meat.) But, of course, this is the very sort of problem market competition is supposed to fix. According to economic theory, at least, the last thing a profit-seeking firm is going to do is shell out money to workers they don’t really need to employ. Still, somehow, it happens.”
― David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory

“Fear doesn't prevent death. It prevents life.”
― Naguib Mahfouz