Ladder Climbing

We all love to climb ladders. If you were like me growing up, everything you did seemed to have some ladder associated with it. Good job Guy, you are reading at a 3rd Grade level! Wow, your math skills are at 5th Grade level! Here is your Boy Scout Badge and your advancement ranking pins and beads. Everywhere we look we have ranking systems and rewards. It must be a human nature thing. We are motivated with dopamine hits when we achieve new levels, so as a consequence we make them frequent and often. I hardly every play a video game, but I was looking at one with my daughter. Sure enough, rankings, rewards, status indicators and badges. The other day I had a badge pop up on one of my phone apps indicating that I won the “Night Owl” award, which means that I read the app past midnight. That was a good thing?

Anyway, it is no small wonder that we are inclined to look for the next rung in the ladder. Everywhere we look, everything we do. What is my next step? I want to know my pathway.

Let me say this, as clearly as I can, STOP LETTING OTHER PEOPLE GIVE YOU THE BREAD CRUMBS TO FOLLOW. This society has become like some sort of sick game of Candy Land. You remember that game as a child, lollypop forest and all of that? You are on a path, of small little rewards until you reach the end. Well, life is not a Candy Land game, and your purpose should not be defined by the little reward systems that humans and now machines are creating for you. That is right. If you did not know this already, computer scientists have already figured out how to get AI algorithms to attract humans like ants to honey with little rewards. If you whole day highlight was the recognition you got on your app, or the level up in your game, then you are potentially heading down Candy Lane. This is not the mystical Candy Castle, this is probably more akin to the gutter where Penny Wise waits.

Please. Please. Please stop thinking of your occupation like a video game where your only success is achieving the next level. It is mind numbing, especially for the poor people that manage you. Everyone is seeking the next level, everyone wants to be promoted, everyone wants to get the next title. Nauseating to say the least. Your job, as I have learned later in life, is really a means to an end. The End is what you define, not someone else. I choose where I work, and I work where I do because it fits a purpose. That purpose is my own and fits my needs. If your job and your needs are in alignment, well great things start to happen. Then you might get a promotion, or hey, maybe not a promotion, maybe you will be just really good at your craft – which should be an end all by itself!

I think everyone intrinsically knows this, most people when they think about it get the truth of this. The challenge, and I have this problem myself, is that I get on the Candy Lane of little rewards and I forget my real purpose. Forget where I am really headed and I get caught up in the game. It is when we become mindless, mind controlled even is when we loose who we are, and what we are about. We become soul less. So lets stop ladder climbing shall we?

Ok, back to playing this game on my phone. Just one last show to finish season 4.

Guy Reams

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