Wage Freedom » Improving Your Life http://wagefreedom.com Free Yourself, And Use Your Freedom Well Fri, 10 Sep 2010 07:00:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Better Than Money http://wagefreedom.com/better-than-money/ http://wagefreedom.com/better-than-money/#comments Tue, 26 May 2009 03:06:48 +0000 admin http://wagefreedom.com/?p=871 Square tree
Creative Commons License photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar

“Poor people will do almost anything to avoid problems. They see a challenge and they run…the secret to success, my friends, is not to try to avoid or get rid of or shrink from your problems; the secret is to grow yourself so that you are bigger than your problems.” ~ T. Harv Eker

]]> http://wagefreedom.com/better-than-money/feed/ 0 Henry Miller http://wagefreedom.com/henry-miller/ http://wagefreedom.com/henry-miller/#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 08:43:21 +0000 admin http://wagefreedom.com/?p=861 henry-miller

“We live at the edge of the miraculous.”

–Henry Miller

]]> http://wagefreedom.com/henry-miller/feed/ 0 If it doesn’t feel like victory, it probably isn’t. http://wagefreedom.com/if-it-doesnt-feel-like-victory-it-probably-isnt/ http://wagefreedom.com/if-it-doesnt-feel-like-victory-it-probably-isnt/#comments Sat, 20 Dec 2008 07:25:31 +0000 admin http://wagefreedom.com/?p=559 Niki Samianus, says the placard on the dashboard.
“Niki Samianus. That sounds like a Baltic rock star.” He smiles charitably, as he does for tourists saying silly things – maybe he’s unfamiliar with the Baltics, and he may not know what a rock star is, even though he is one.

Niki is from the island of Flores, Indonesia, not Lithuania, coming to Bali to find opportunity that is here because of tourism, by driving a Bluebird Taxi.
You’ll want to take Bluebird Taxis when you come to Bali. They’re clean, their drivers have change, and they’ll use the untampered-with meters without prodding, every time. The driving-foreigners-around scene is hyper-competitive and because of their affiliation, Bluebird drivers have a much easier time getting fares (and possibly, making more money) than the guys working for less-organized companies or freelancing. The freelancers stay in business, tenuously as they do, because even two or three good negotiated fares a day might pay for gas, the car and living expenses and because this game is one where the outcome is greatly affected by a driver’s ‘level of commitment’. As a foreigner here I’m accosted by more slowing/horn beeping/rubbernecking from freelance taxi drivers than a supermodel in New York City (I imagine).
Clearly if there is enough competition relative to available opportunity in a given labor market (e.g. taxi driving in Bali), then differentiating yourself as a franchise through an established brand, or outright employment, is a much easier way to go than freelancing. I’ll bet that there is not one taxi driver in Bali who wouldn’t drive for Bluebird if he could, because Indonesia is a country where people would generally prefer simple security to ‘making it big’. Actually for Niki, coming from elsewhere, this job has to be a major victory, suggesting that sometimes earning a wage is the best way to wage one’s freedom. The islands east of Bali are like a step back in time in many ways, and I’m sure that Niki has one hell of an escape story.

But before you accept a psychology of being grateful over expecting better things of you and your life, I’d take a hard look at your situation, and ask if it is as laden with economic hardship as it seems (a la Niki’s life, back in Flores) before accepting employment as the road to More. And how would you know if you are settling beneath your potential, or engaged in activity and goals worthy of your capacities?
If it doesn’t feel like victory, it probably isn’t.

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