I worked around 250 hours within the past 5 months, working around 15-16 hours per week. Throughout, I was reminded of the toil and the immense hard labor required just to survive. It’s a blessing to have the privilege and meeting parents who can afford food, shelter, education, and opportunities. I really was blinded for many of my years by the harshness of living. I still have a limited vision of what it’s truly like in the absence of living that lifestyle. 

The more dreadful I feel, the more I am pushed and motivated to work harder in intellectual pursuits and reminded about the pains.

It’s so easy for this motivation to evaporate so I won’t rely on it. Discipline is a lifestyle and allows me to get the freedom I so desire. 

Doing autonomous tasks repeatedly was tiresome and felt empty. It felt so easy to feel trapped and to make that my life. I could scrape by and if I had short-term pleasures like sex, alcohol, and drugs, this cycle would perpetuate. I see this in my co-worker who’s 26 working at Islands and also as a Barista while living with a housemate. Chasing after girls yet getting ghosted. Feeling inadequate and too lazy to build a skill. I see myself in him as I’m just as capable of becoming. These stories are honest and sensible as there are millions of Kennys’ in the world. I want to do more and not be replaced too easily. To give in a fight and provide value to society to earn the freedom of exploring territories I haven’t been in and to be a part of something greater. 

I want to have access and privileges of contributing to something meaningful through creation. For that, I need to play the game and build skill sets. In part, I get to choose the paths also thanks to the era I’m born in. 

I don’t need much to survive but if I’m here anyway, my mind as well aims for the highest good, while giving more to those in need. To represent those of lost hope and reignite the flame by sharing my story. To be punished and to pay dues for the reward of serving others. No matter the negative emotions and pain, to find the light. Greed will consume you. 

I must not feel exhausted from the grueling pain of physical labor but as a reminder of why I must continue to build skill sets and challenge myself intellectually as it aims for a better understanding of the world granting efficacy and efficiency whereas there’s a limit of physical labor. It’s stagnant. 

I need to learn how to scale, to impact as many people as possible through the use of the internet as it converts to wealth. Avoid extracting from the poor by begging but instead providing value and using attention as means of payment. 

I take for granted for minimum wage and I get to enjoy the variety of opportunities today in the labor market through the toils of laborers in the past, investing in businesses, making costs cheaper, increasing working conditions, and such on. People compete to get a job in the factory. In a free market, competition would be even more fierce where wages would be driven higher. Instead, I’m working currently in an industry where the pay is a bit higher despite productive ability benefitting another industry. 

On July 3, I learned that the waitress earned $150 in tips from a table of 25. Working with people is much more lucrative and irreplaceable. I’m glad I told the manager I’ll be leaving next month. I realized that I didn’t really matter as much as I believed. No genuine care. It showed me that I have to build skillsets in order to make myself different and to confront the tasks people are not wanting to do as they are rewarded by society. Most of the problems are constructed by my interpretation of the world. As I come back to finish this piece due to drowsiness in studying, I’m again reminded of how easy it is to take it for granted and the importance of doing the thing I don’t want to do to achieve freedom. Use this piece as a reminder of the pains of physical labor.