Employment is a supposed to be guarantee of income on a
regular basis, weekly, monthly, or yearly. After God had created man, he
commissioned him to work in the Garden of Eden, work in this case according to
theologians means “to become” meaning God commissioned Adam to become
everything that he had intended for him to become. Man had to find out for
himself what he could do with the resources around him. In fact, it is argued
that, God did not create Adam with everything he needed rather, he placed
resources within his environment which Adam needed to process in order to get
everything he needed.
Before we dive in to the reasons why employment
makes it hard for us to live our dreams, let us first of all discuss the differences
between employment and work.
·
Employment is the job we are trained
to do while work is what we were born to do or what God commissioned us to do.
·
In order to be employable we need
skills whereas work requires us to put our talents to work.
·
We can get fired from our employment
but no one can fire us from doing what we were born to do, for example no one
can fire Ezekiel Kemboi from being a runner, but the CEO of Safaricom can get
fired. In other words, no one can stop you from becoming what you were meant to
be.
·
We retire from our employment when we
get old and we can hand our positions over to the next generations in a
predictable way, we hardly retire from our talents and we cannot hand them over
to the next generation, we can only pass on the benefits of our talents.
·
Employment will help you to survive
but your work will create wealth for you.
Employment is described as modern day slavery as it
ties you to the same position, hinders you from thinking freely and eventually
stops you from making personal progress. We have become so depended on
employment such that such that if there is no job we become helpless. This is
why we talk of unemployment rates all the time. Our young men and women live
colleges with a promise of a well paying job and no alternative to it. When
these jobs become hard to come by, they end up desperate. That is why we read
the news of a trained young lawyer becoming a cold blooded murderer in a
terrorist organization. We hear of young men and women becoming “educated
criminals.” The government has even gone to the extent of running its political
agenda on the promise of employment which makes the government our economic
parent.
I am not
trying to demonetize employment, employment is a good thing, it is supposed to
prepare us to exploit our talents, that is why I insist that young men and
women in colleges and universities should be offered training in areas of their
talents so that when they get to the job market, they can practice their talent
and put them to test. Therefore, employment is only good if people are employed
in their areas of gifts and talents because this will give them an opportunity
to grow their talents.
When God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden, he did
not give Adam everything he needed, for example, he did not give Adam a chair
or a bed; he expected Adam to see the chair and the bed in the tree. Employment
prevents us from seeing the chair in the tree. Most of us are so busy going to
our jobs or looking for employment such that we pass by problems every single day
that beg for our talents to solve and we do not get to see them. Someone once
said this “your life is bigger than your job, it’s a calling” meaning whatever
you were commissioned to become is much bigger than your employment. You are
like a tree, and your talents and abilities are like fruits, people only value
you when they see the talents that you posses. Your value is therefore defined
by the uniqueness of your talents. The more unique your talent is, the more
valuable you are as a person. Bare your fruit and people will come to you, when
you have found your talent, you do not worry about getting hired, people will
come looking for you. It is also written, “Sow your seed in the morning and in
the evening let your hand be not idle……because you do not know which one will
succeed…..” meaning, if you are employed, work during the day and give it all
your best but after working hours are over, embark on personal growth do not
let traffic jams and television stop you from finding out what you are good at.
The advice here is, no one has created wealth by working for another person;
people create wealth when they put their talents to use. Create your wealth
after five o'clock. Go back to school in
the evening, run a business, study, write, sing and so on. Listen to good
advice, you cannot build yourself by sleeping for 8 hours a day, most
successful people build their wealth when the rest are sleeping.
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