The things we do to survive in life can lead to the inevitable shortening of our lives and through this almost completely defeat the purpose of doing them in the first place.
We have all been there and the truth is, in a choice between just scraping by and low income versus sufficient income or relative wealth – the cost is not always measured in material or immediately obvious ways.
Brushing consequences away and under the carpet of “I got this” and “I have this under control” or “It’s not a problem” is what we say to ourselves both when we do and when we do not have full control of ourselves or our situation. People with addictions say similar things, at least at first and before the tragic arc of their unfurling personal catastrophe become undeniable and even if it is often these people who suffer most who are last to acknowledge or realise and understand the reality of the deep and fast-moving waters in which they now find themselves sinking.
At the very least, if you must work in a job that is bad for your health, try to find work that has some kind of personal meaning for you, if possible and as a cognitive or emotional and psychological buffer- beyond the behavioural idioms and practices of the work itself; this will sustain you a little longer but in the end – human beings were not made to be enslaved by industrialised, hyper-commercial or runaway technological machines of profit, mismanagement and unrepentant exploitation, even if that is where most of find ourselves and in one way or another, both directly or indirectly.
Take care of yourself, you good people out there: Life is short enough already…
Daedelus Kite 