> One of the strangest features of American work culture is the constant pressure to treat one’s job as something more than a job: a calling, a means of expressing oneself, a vehicle for personal growth. This pressure comes from bosses <...>
The idea behind this - expressing oneself - isn't American. When ideas like that come to this world, they come to many nations at the same time, the greatest minds pick them up and create their own interpretation, based on local culture and their beliefs. Some of those great minds see the great ideas well and express them cleanly. Others distort the ideas with their egos and sometimes even add poison, creating intentionally misleading interpretations.
The idea that you need to express yourself, find a calling that's bigger than you, is true and spiritual in nature. It draws attention to a core aspect of what we are. However some of the great minds are also selfish: they are able to see this idea, they recognize it as an important and powerful truth, but then they find a way to distort it for personal gain. So they create a thin lie around this truth: that you need to express yourself thru work for self at the expense of others, because that's the only way to survive and thrive in this world of scarcity. Most people will be fooled because this lie is an artwork of minds far greater than them. So the common folk embrace this false interpretation and start living according to it.
The idea behind this - expressing oneself - isn't American. When ideas like that come to this world, they come to many nations at the same time, the greatest minds pick them up and create their own interpretation, based on local culture and their beliefs. Some of those great minds see the great ideas well and express them cleanly. Others distort the ideas with their egos and sometimes even add poison, creating intentionally misleading interpretations.
The idea that you need to express yourself, find a calling that's bigger than you, is true and spiritual in nature. It draws attention to a core aspect of what we are. However some of the great minds are also selfish: they are able to see this idea, they recognize it as an important and powerful truth, but then they find a way to distort it for personal gain. So they create a thin lie around this truth: that you need to express yourself thru work for self at the expense of others, because that's the only way to survive and thrive in this world of scarcity. Most people will be fooled because this lie is an artwork of minds far greater than them. So the common folk embrace this false interpretation and start living according to it.