Life In a Box

Another day, another incremental reduction of pride. This is what your life will be. The real advantage is gained once you’ve shed all of it. Things will become much easier. It won’t feel right at first but it will get progressively less difficult, until it’s nearly effortless. There’s no shame in it. We all do it. There will be good days and bad days. Distractions are helpful. Anything to help you look away is advantageous, anything to make the humiliation feel more worthwhile and rewarding. The trivial, perhaps even illusory, amount of power and control that you’ll acquire will help you rationalize your complacency and submission. Buy a bigger car. Take on an intern. Decorate your office or cubicle with artifacts that point to your success. Drink expensive coffee. Wear designer clothes in seasonally appropriate colors. Master the lingo. Exude satisfaction and professionalism. Get a stylish haircut and maintain it meticulously – extra points if you pick it out of a magazine. Find an “A-List” celebrity and try to emulate his appearance as closely as possible. You may even want to try to identify with him. Go to church. Invest in an afterlife. Watch football on Sunday afternoons. Drink lite beer. Develop poorly informed, overly simplified, but strongly expressed popular opinions about complex political, social, and moral issues, but don’t feel compelled to hold yourself up to the implications of those opinions. Have a spouse and a child. Have a few of each. These things are all important. “A little bit of sugar helps the medicine go down.” Frankly, the more sugar, the better. Anything to get it down is fine. Anything to keep you docile and malleable is worth its price. That’s one of the great mysteries which you’ll unravel at your places of work. Your success was never based upon your brilliant intellect or your performance. It’s based upon your temperament and commitment. These things are what make you valuable to your employer. Too much spine or intelligence is undesirable. You must be accommodating and convincing. You have to want the yoke.