Why are we so apathetic?
- Thread starter Skarekrow
- Start date
It's interesting to see Canadians weigh in on this situation. I can't say for certainty, but I'd presume Canada has a lot more help for the desperate members of society who need it. Despite what our news leads people to believe, there really isn't much available in the US if somebody finds the bottom drop out from under them.
Here's a typical example - from some personal and many, dozens, possibly hundreds of others I've seen/heard/know:
A person relatively new to the workforce, say with 10 years or so under their belt finds their job is one day gone. They have some obstacles to overcome.
1 - Employers will fight tooth and nail to deny unemployment claims, in fact, they have entire departments set up to do nothing but ensure UI (Unemployment Insurance) denials - Human Resources.
2 - If a person left of their own accord but was "forcibly ejected" by say, workplace bullying, or some other Organizational Psychology term, they have almost no leg to stand on to file a UI claim with. Legally, a "hostile workplace" is an impossible situation to prove and the case will almost always be awarded to the employer.
3 - If they have a black & white UI case and actually claim it, the government then cuts back on the length of time they are able to receive their checks and requires the person to follow specific guidelines including documentation of job applications.
4 - Due to the application requirement, if a job offer is made, the unemployed person cannot reject the offer, or else they lose their only income - they have 0 bargaining leverage thanks to the government.
If the UI runs out before employment is offered, then the shit hits the fan.
5 - Options now are to take the first job the comes along or wait for a better offer. This leads to PhD's waiting tables at the local IHOP and various other cases of "under-employment" where a skilled, educated labor force is being used for unskilled jobs.
6 - Making $200 a week, as the majority of jobs are only part-time and minimal wage, does more harm then good as it disqualifies the person from most of the government funded benefits they would otherwise receive - Medicaid, Food Stamps, Child Assistance, WIC, etc.
7 - Adding a child to this only adds to the problem as child care is not included in most programs and the cost of child care negates most job's wages. This means a family scraping by with a 2 person income before their luck turned, now has a .5 person income with minimal government assistance.
8 - This wonderful "Obamacare" people talk about still charges you per month to buy an insurance plan. Although you get a tax credit based on your income levels, you could still end up paying out $100+ a month for basic care for you and a family.
9 - Homelessness strikes when one area of this house of cards collapses. The one and only job may cut hours, wages or simply fire the person. A family member might get sick beyond the insurance coverage. A car might break down, needing $900 of repairs. Rent might increases. At this point, anything could be enough to push this family over the edge... and there's no safety net.
10 - Many necessities we take for granted such as cell phones and Internet, aren't covered by a government assistance program. Local governments can sometimes offer some assistance, we have phones here for instance, but things like water bills, might not be covered. Internet's another one - if you can't afford Internet service, how are you supposed to find a job better than the $7.50 an hour bus boy position at a local restaurant?
Now some of our UK and CA counterparts might see what the reality is for a lot of people in this so-called "developed" country we call the United States. Meanwhile, rich, million-dollar salaried CEO's just keep getting more and more money by preying on the poor people who can't afford to fight back. (I'm looking at you WalMart) I wouldn't call them apathetic though, I'd call them sociopathic.
I will also add that it doesn't end there. Retirement benefits, 401k-s and social security are all dependent on the amount you earn throughout your working years. If you find yourself in a position like this, 20-30 years later you might end up reliving it as it comes back to haunt you. It happens to a lot of people, ask a single, retired woman. Many times they're the generation that were never paid fairly or allowed to work even. Once whatever money their husbands left them upon their death are gone, they have next-to-nothing to live on since their Social Security checks are barely enough to pay rent.
Here's a typical example - from some personal and many, dozens, possibly hundreds of others I've seen/heard/know:
A person relatively new to the workforce, say with 10 years or so under their belt finds their job is one day gone. They have some obstacles to overcome.
1 - Employers will fight tooth and nail to deny unemployment claims, in fact, they have entire departments set up to do nothing but ensure UI (Unemployment Insurance) denials - Human Resources.
2 - If a person left of their own accord but was "forcibly ejected" by say, workplace bullying, or some other Organizational Psychology term, they have almost no leg to stand on to file a UI claim with. Legally, a "hostile workplace" is an impossible situation to prove and the case will almost always be awarded to the employer.
3 - If they have a black & white UI case and actually claim it, the government then cuts back on the length of time they are able to receive their checks and requires the person to follow specific guidelines including documentation of job applications.
4 - Due to the application requirement, if a job offer is made, the unemployed person cannot reject the offer, or else they lose their only income - they have 0 bargaining leverage thanks to the government.
If the UI runs out before employment is offered, then the shit hits the fan.
5 - Options now are to take the first job the comes along or wait for a better offer. This leads to PhD's waiting tables at the local IHOP and various other cases of "under-employment" where a skilled, educated labor force is being used for unskilled jobs.
6 - Making $200 a week, as the majority of jobs are only part-time and minimal wage, does more harm then good as it disqualifies the person from most of the government funded benefits they would otherwise receive - Medicaid, Food Stamps, Child Assistance, WIC, etc.
7 - Adding a child to this only adds to the problem as child care is not included in most programs and the cost of child care negates most job's wages. This means a family scraping by with a 2 person income before their luck turned, now has a .5 person income with minimal government assistance.
8 - This wonderful "Obamacare" people talk about still charges you per month to buy an insurance plan. Although you get a tax credit based on your income levels, you could still end up paying out $100+ a month for basic care for you and a family.
9 - Homelessness strikes when one area of this house of cards collapses. The one and only job may cut hours, wages or simply fire the person. A family member might get sick beyond the insurance coverage. A car might break down, needing $900 of repairs. Rent might increases. At this point, anything could be enough to push this family over the edge... and there's no safety net.
10 - Many necessities we take for granted such as cell phones and Internet, aren't covered by a government assistance program. Local governments can sometimes offer some assistance, we have phones here for instance, but things like water bills, might not be covered. Internet's another one - if you can't afford Internet service, how are you supposed to find a job better than the $7.50 an hour bus boy position at a local restaurant?
Now some of our UK and CA counterparts might see what the reality is for a lot of people in this so-called "developed" country we call the United States. Meanwhile, rich, million-dollar salaried CEO's just keep getting more and more money by preying on the poor people who can't afford to fight back. (I'm looking at you WalMart) I wouldn't call them apathetic though, I'd call them sociopathic.
I will also add that it doesn't end there. Retirement benefits, 401k-s and social security are all dependent on the amount you earn throughout your working years. If you find yourself in a position like this, 20-30 years later you might end up reliving it as it comes back to haunt you. It happens to a lot of people, ask a single, retired woman. Many times they're the generation that were never paid fairly or allowed to work even. Once whatever money their husbands left them upon their death are gone, they have next-to-nothing to live on since their Social Security checks are barely enough to pay rent.
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If enough CEO's do the following they might just avoid the pitchforks
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/seattle-ceo-cut-pay-worker-earns-70000-30356678
[h=1]Seattle CEO to Cut His Pay So Every Worker Earns $70,000[/h] SEATTLE – Apr 16, 2015, 3:47 AM ET
By GENE JOHNSON Associated Press
A Seattle CEO who announced that he's giving himself a drastic pay cut to help cover the cost of big raises for his employees didn't just make those workers happy.
He's already gained new customers, too.
"We've definitely gained a handful of customers in the last day or two," said Stefan Bennett, a customer relations manager at Gravity Payments, a credit card payment processing firm. "We're showing people you can run a good company, and you can pay people fairly, and it can be profitable."
Dan Price, chief executive of the company, stunned his 100-plus workers on Monday when he told them he was cutting his roughly $1 million salary to $70,000 and using company profits to ensure that everyone there would earn at least that much within three years.
For some workers, the increase will more than double their pay. One 21-year-old mother said she'll buy a house.
At a time of increasing anger nationally over the enormous gap between the pay of top executives and their employees, the announcement received immense attention. But corporate governance professor David Larcker of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business said it's unclear if Price's unusual gesture will start a trend.
"It's an alternative way to think about a tough problem, and I give these guys a lot of credit for laying it out there," Larcker said. "Whether this would scale to a bigger organization, it's hard to know. But it's clever, it's interesting and it's fun to think about."
Washington state already has the nation's highest minimum wage at $9.47 an hour, and earlier this month Seattle's minimum wage law went into effect. It will eventually raise base hourly pay to $15.
Labor unions and workers in the Seattle area on Wednesday joined national protests for better pay. Drivers for Uber and Lyft – the app-based car-hailing services – gathered in Seattle, while airport workers rallied at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. In Seattle, police arrested 21 demonstrators who opted for civil disobedience to dramatize their point, refusing to move out of an intersection at the conclusion of their march.
Gravity's CEO launched the company from his dorm room at Seattle Pacific University when he was just 19. He's long taken a progressive approach that included adopting a policy allowing his workers to take unlimited paid vacation after their first year.
"I think this is just what everyone deserves," Price told workers in a video of Monday's announcement released by the company.
But he also acknowledged it won't be easy: The increased pay will eat into at least half the company's profits, he said, and he has no plans to simply raise rates on clients.
"It's up to us to find a way to make it work," he said.
Bennett, 28, went to college with Price and has worked for Gravity since graduation. He said he was already happy to work for a company that treats its employees and customers well in what he otherwise considers a predatory industry. For him, the raise will amount to about $10,000.
"I don't care as much about the money," he said. "But if I look at my colleagues, and what they talk about on a day-to-day basis and what their concerns are – just looking at their faces when Dan announced the pay increase, it was pretty phenomenal."
I didn't see any ENTJ's posting that they don't care at all....
I have taken the test and have answered it honestly, but there are a lot of variables that come into those answers and I don't feel they get me the correct results.
It takes a LOT of work and total shittiness to reach the bottom of the barrel in Canada. You don't often see people dropped out of society up here. I think that is part of my judgement against such people, as there are SO MANY resources available for folks that it makes it hard for me to understand how someone could let their lives sink that low and then have the expectation that the government fund them. The way hiring/firing/HR/Benefits/Welfare/etc here works is different. I just comment from the Canadian side of things, not from the USA which I understand is far worse.
3: I don't really have a problem with this specifically as the goverment is not going to support a person indefinitely while they find a job that meets their qualifications, even though that is ideal.
4: I don't see a problem with this only in that I think people feel backed into a corner and forced to take a job, but I think that it's fine to do that as it only has to be temporary. I know a lot of people right now who stay on assistance because the perfect job hasn't come along, but at the same time the benefit of working and building a resume and potentially getting benefits (almost everywhere up here offers them) outweighs waiting for the perfect opportunity... which you can still hunt and apply for while you work the other job.
6: I'd rather kill myself than make 200 dollars a week. I don't think that is reasonable at all, though I do think up here some people only pull in 600-700 a month. That said, a lot of things up here are quite a lot more expensive, so maybe the cost down there helps people scrape by - even if barely. But I don't think you can have a very good quality of life on that wage unless you are a single person who doesn't mind living exceptionally frugally.
7: I find that bizarre only in that parents up here usually get well over 1000 dollars a month if you combine their goverment resources/welfare together. It's just a different system I suppose.
Well that is what we are trying to establish isn't it?
here's the thing about reality...it isn't what you want it to be...it is what it is
So we don't get to take a test and then say to ourselves: ''you know what...i don't like that result so i'm going to ignore it''
Answer the questions honestly and then assimilate the reality warts and all...that's how we grow
There are too many people picking personality types as if they are a fashion item they can take off a clothes hanger
We don't get to change our type like our hairstyle
The point of the tests is that they will tell you your type as long as you are honest with it
If you are dishonest because you want to steer the test you are ultimately only conning yourself
And when people try to wear types that are not their type it's usually pretty damn obvious
And this is why I haven't sorted out my type and why I choose not to display one. I think it would be dishonest to put a type up and allow people to judge me based on that when I am still working through myself and learning myself.
Let me explain my dilemma:
I spent a very large portion of my life suffering from mental illness. I had a very deep depression and I suffered from panic disorder which eroded me down into agoraphobia. My entire worldview was filtered through a fearful and depressed lens. During this time I was sensitive to a lot of things and felt a lot of emotions very strongly because it was all that I had. I typed for several years as INFJ back when I joined around 2009 and many other people felt the same.
I made some significant changes in my life. I was able to get promoted in my job even though I am not in an industry I am happy with nor do I get any personal satisfaction in it. I often say that I would rather be in customer service and sometimes miss the years of guiding a team and serving coffee. Instead, I am stuck behind a screen with numbers and letters. The difference is now that I no longer suffer from severe anxiety and depression, so I am able to be more of a go getter and actively participate in my life. I suffered through a great deal in my life from growing up poor as fuck, to being bullied, having red hair, having been overweight, having panic attacks every time I left the house, etc. I suffered from sexual harrasment and a long term abusive relationship and through all of that I was able to come out on top. Now, I tend to look at myself and what I was able to pull myself through alone and I often feel aggravated by people who will not do their research, who will not work hard to make their lives better, who take advantage of other people and who just sort of slide by in life all the while complaining about it. That attitude I think will come across to people in a very specific way and I understand it comes through in my posts. It may be why you seem to think that I have this "Victims should stop victimizing themselves." Which I DO think is true on an interpersonal level, but I also think is very hard to combat on a global scale. These finer points are what you miss in my posts - I believe that people have a personal responsibility to themselves to take care of themselves and each other the best that they can while also understanding that they have been born and raised in a system that does not operate and was never created to work in their favour.
So. If I answer questions based on the reality as I once understood it which was through the lens of fear, then I would type as INFJ.
If I were to answer questions when I am in a more carefree, stress free mind frame, I come out as ESTJ.
If I answer when I am working too much or have a lot of workplace stresses and issues going on, I come out as ENTJ.
When I asked my boyfriend, who I have known for 10 years and who gets all the best parts of who I am as a person, he took a test based on how he sees me and it came out as ISFP.
You can take that in whatever way you choose though I do suspect you strongly believe I am some kind of psychpathic or sociopathic ENTJ who doesn't care about the world or the people in it, and because of your own bias against that type you'll react to me and speak with me in such a way.
I don't owe you any kind of type explanation and you don't have to condescend to me as if you think I or other people are wishy washy and are just trying to play at being something we're not. That's annoying.
I don't think you are psychopathic
I think that life brutalises people
It hurts them so they that they develop emotional calluses
The problem then is that they can disconnect from their heart and start acting from their head only in the choices they make
Left brain people often act from the head but not the heart. For example the world is full of scientists making sophisticated left brain weapons of war and torture without ever thinking about whether or not they should be doing it (they think they are very clever though!)
But then those weapons are then deployed against people and the survivors of that brutalisation then become hard hearted themselves and more likely to go on and brutalise others
Its a cycle of brutalisation (see for example all the drone strikes against civilians carried out by the US around the world; this then radicalises more people against the US)
This is what i'm talking about when i say the corporate network is CREATING A WORLD IN THEIR IMAGE
Weapons take many forms. There are also financial weapons of mass destruction that destroy whole communities and economies and these weapons ARE being deployed in the corporate network
Darth Vader had a rough time and then turned into a mass murderer; so....what...he suddenly doesn't have a responsibility not to destroy the galaxy?
here's the thing about INTJ's and ENTJ's and as an INFJ i can understand this myself....WE ARE DIFFERENT to the majority of humanity
We're not stupid though and often show signs of high levels of compentency at certain things; it can therefore be frustrating when other types are dismissive of us or treat us differently because they're not sure about us
It can be easy to become bitter about that and scornful towards them
I mean look at how i get dismissed as a 'conspiracy nutjob' here. What those people don't realise is the vast amount of information i've processed to come to those views. I've put a lot of effort and made sacrifices due to my 'awakening'. I have not chosen the easiest course in life but i've tried to make decisions from the heart. That's not to say i haven't made mistakes and done wrong at times i have, but i TRY to do the right thing
here's the reality...the governments are not going to bring positive change...they are totally corrupted
It is going to HAVE TO come from us, the people. We are going to have to shape the world through how we spend our money, what we support economically and politically and spiritually and we are going to have to VOTE WITH OUR feet over how we make a living and over what we give power to
If we do not do that and instead support the corporate monster then we are complicit in it
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I think we might be on a path to better understanding each other, muir, and that's a good thing.
I do not disagree with your assessment of people developing emotional callouses. I do think that's true. I have many. However I wouldn't say that it has turned me cold to everything. I addressed this in the other response I made to you in the other thread so I won't expand here other than to say I am fighting for a different spoke on the same wheel. I know where I can put my time and energy so that is where I focus it. To me, that's not apathy, but it is choosing which battles I think I am capable of fighting for and what I can educate people on and that is health and wellness. I used to read and process the same information as you, so I do not think you are a conspiracy nut at all.
I remember back in the earlier 2000's my boyfriend and I talked about this subject matter and were very passionate. He told me years in advance that a recession was coming. 2008 came and went and now we're still recovering. In that time I pulled away from those specific aspects of the world because I found it overwhelming and in my depression and agoraphobia I found it difficult to function in my day to day life and had to let it go. That is to say I wanted to commit suicide so was unable to cope with the magnitude of the world's issues. I found something that changed my life, and now that is what I focus on (the food industry which is one of the WORST parts of all this).
I don't own a television and I don't read the news or the newspaper so I don't feel pulled into most of the stuff that people are stuck onto. I guess that's an advantage I have. I just don't relate to most of it now and I sometimes forget how "asleep" people are.
20 years ago, when I graduated high school and was a college freshman, I was... apathetic. I really didn't have any sympathy for these people but, 20 years ago Bill was president, Democrats were still somewhat "progressive" and had some influence and there were more policies in place to prevent people from hitting rock bottom. I also grew up in a "Blue" state where help was readily available on the state level and labor unions were a strong force.
Then I moved.
I moved to a "Red" state and a so-called "Right To Work" state. Right to work is advertised as allowing people to chose which employers they want to work for and giving them the freedom to leave at their will. Essentially every employer becomes an Open Shop, vs the Closed Union Shops. But, leaving a job has never been an issue... seriously, how many people complain about not being able to leave their job?? What Right-To-Work allows for though, is employers to randomly and spontaneously fire any employee at their will without the hassle of a union or the pesky paperwork other states have.
In my brief time as an HR Director, 90% of my job was finding easy ways to fire people and finding legals was of justifying my higher-up's decision to fire people. As long as you don't violate one of the discrimination laws, it's easy.
20 years later and living out here, I now see why people end up scraping the bottom... and how easy it happens. You can go from a six figure salary to nothing in a heartbeat depending on where you live in this country.
See, that sounds weird to me. The only time you can really fire someone at will up here is if a person is on contract or they are in their employment probationary period. I think there are a few more circumstances where it is allowed, but generally speaking firing someone is quite a lot of work for employers and can sometimes become an HR nightmare, even if there's not a union involved. You have to get written up X amount of times, or have X amount of violations, or you have to do something that is blatantly against the terms of your contract, etc.... It takes a lot of work to get thrown out the door in most cases. Sometimes I think that's too bad because a lot if people are just terrible employees, but I think overall it protects most people from being shoved out without a hope. I actually only learned recently that people could be fired for almost no reason what so ever in other places and that really surprises me.
The term 'asleep' sounds incredibly insulting to those who don;t know what we are talking about
But in terms of making conscious that which was previously unconscious the term is suitable
It really is an awakening to the fact that we have been lied to about basically everything!
I give you a lot of thumbs up and we agree on a lot; i certainly don't want to fall out
But when you say that you don't care about whats happening to other people for me that is like moving around the world with blinkers on that cut out your vision of what is going on around you
Everything is connected and everything we do has consequences
An INTJ poster posted a thread about the making of a can of coca cola and the thread was supposed to be a celebration of capitalism and how it used stuff from around the world; it showed all the resources that went into getting the ingredients, making the tin can, decorating it and shipping it to the shops
But i sat watching that video and found it incredibly depressing
What i saw was vast resources being used to create a useless product that has no nutritional value and in fact worse than having no benefit for the consumer is actually harmful to them because it contains refined sugar and aspartame (which kills brain cells) as well as caramel colourings (i'm pretty sure they are carcinogenic)
basically people drink coke for a boost because it is a stimulant (contains caffeine and sugar) but sugar creates a short lived 'high' followed by an energy crash and caffeine is not good in excess. Also what kind of society do we live in where people have to get by through constantly pumping themselves full of stimulants?
I watched that and thought what a waste it all was. Instead of creating that junk those vast resources could be used to help create clean water or healthy sustainable food for the population and yet a corporate system that is all about the bottom line keeps turning the worlds resources into land fill and poisons
Madness
I understand that people might find it insulting, but we are speaking to each other on a forum with a lot of people who understand what that term really means, so I think it is safe to use here. I don't usually use that kind of language in every day life because I know it creates a divide between myself and other people. I try to sort of... guide people into the awareness but they are stubborn as fuck. I also think people panic when they feel threatened with new information. We have all taken billions of threads of experiences and information and have woven them together to form our own unique perspectives and some people use that as a blanket to shield themselves from the world and others try to pick apart the pieces to see where it all leads back to. I guess we all have different operating mechanisms and some of use are better equipped to handle it than others.
I agree, and I would not say that I don't care. Well, I do say it, but not in the sense that I literally don't care at all about anyone or anything. It's more in the sense that I don't care to place my focus on certain situations because my focus and energy is elsewhere. I am not the right person to be dealing with certain global issues and I am not the person to educate others on it. I don't care to because it is not my passion in those areas - for example the banking system. Like I said before, my "care" is for helping people but with other aspects of their lives, such as the food industry. It's simply a different method. Additionally, there is a distinction for me between not caring and simply not feeling personal responsibility for other people. I have to draw a line because I don't have the psychological, emotional and energetic stamina to sustain that. I can't do what I do best and help to my full capacity if I am getting myself wrapped up in that. That's just how I operate and I have learned my lesson from burning myself out on other people.
I can see how some may see the beauty in may parties coming together to formulate a successful product that many people enjoy, even if that enjoyment is usually the sugar high or the caffeine kick that they get from it. Personally I think pop is disgusting, just as I think most food is disgusting if you can't pull it out of the ground or get it from an animal (I only buy ethically raised meats, etc and try to be careful where I source my food from for this reason). I find the reliance on these kinds of manufactured products to be very strange. I do enjoy the taste of coffee. In fact, I like the whole experience of sitting down in the morning and making it and smelling it and consuming it and I imagine that part of that has been marketed to me, though strangely I worked in a coffee chain for six years and never felt compelled to drink it at that time... That being said, I romanticize a nice cup of coffee in the same way many might feel that way towards a bag of chips or a can of coke. As a previously overweight and unhealthy person, I can completely empathize with how people get roped into poor food choices. I can understand the psychological and emotional aspect of eating the wrong things. Not to say that I think it's wrong if you want to have a piece of cheese cake or enjoy some fries once in a while. But I think we're living in a pretty fucked up place when most food comes out of a box and is manufactured shit from Monsanto... That scares me a bit but people LOVE eating it, just as I once did.
I think the same thing happens with money and jobs and education and lifestyle, but it taps into a different aspect of people's psychology. Some of it I do not understand being that for the most part I am a minimalist in what I own and I have learned some lessons about money to the degree that I don't wish to repeat my past mistakes, so I feel a bit removed from all of that. But I do think it is madness.
I drive past smoke stacks every day to work from the steel factories. Sometimes I feel like I am suffocating as I drive over the bridge and for miles all I see is steam and flames. There are a few places for old cars and parts and such and I've recently caught myself thinking "This is the resting place of all the happiness we thought we were buying..." It was a pretty powerful feeling for me. It's sickness.
Well I think we've found some common ground!
We're all just trying to make our way in this world, but if we ever want it to be a better one, we are all going to have to slowly but surely vote with our feet on everything
If enough CEO's do the following they might just avoid the pitchforks
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/seattle-ceo-cut-pay-worker-earns-70000-30356678
Seattle CEO to Cut His Pay So Every Worker Earns $70,000
SEATTLE — Apr 16, 2015, 3:47 AM ET
By GENE JOHNSON Associated Press
A Seattle CEO who announced that he's giving himself a drastic pay cut to help cover the cost of big raises for his employees didn't just make those workers happy.
He's already gained new customers, too.
"We've definitely gained a handful of customers in the last day or two," said Stefan Bennett, a customer relations manager at Gravity Payments, a credit card payment processing firm. "We're showing people you can run a good company, and you can pay people fairly, and it can be profitable."
Dan Price, chief executive of the company, stunned his 100-plus workers on Monday when he told them he was cutting his roughly $1 million salary to $70,000 and using company profits to ensure that everyone there would earn at least that much within three years.
For some workers, the increase will more than double their pay. One 21-year-old mother said she'll buy a house.
At a time of increasing anger nationally over the enormous gap between the pay of top executives and their employees, the announcement received immense attention. But corporate governance professor David Larcker of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business said it's unclear if Price's unusual gesture will start a trend.
"It's an alternative way to think about a tough problem, and I give these guys a lot of credit for laying it out there," Larcker said. "Whether this would scale to a bigger organization, it's hard to know. But it's clever, it's interesting and it's fun to think about."
Washington state already has the nation's highest minimum wage at $9.47 an hour, and earlier this month Seattle's minimum wage law went into effect. It will eventually raise base hourly pay to $15.
Labor unions and workers in the Seattle area on Wednesday joined national protests for better pay. Drivers for Uber and Lyft — the app-based car-hailing services — gathered in Seattle, while airport workers rallied at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. In Seattle, police arrested 21 demonstrators who opted for civil disobedience to dramatize their point, refusing to move out of an intersection at the conclusion of their march.
Gravity's CEO launched the company from his dorm room at Seattle Pacific University when he was just 19. He's long taken a progressive approach that included adopting a policy allowing his workers to take unlimited paid vacation after their first year.
"I think this is just what everyone deserves," Price told workers in a video of Monday's announcement released by the company.
But he also acknowledged it won't be easy: The increased pay will eat into at least half the company's profits, he said, and he has no plans to simply raise rates on clients.
"It's up to us to find a way to make it work," he said.
Bennett, 28, went to college with Price and has worked for Gravity since graduation. He said he was already happy to work for a company that treats its employees and customers well in what he otherwise considers a predatory industry. For him, the raise will amount to about $10,000.
"I don't care as much about the money," he said. "But if I look at my colleagues, and what they talk about on a day-to-day basis and what their concerns are — just looking at their faces when Dan announced the pay increase, it was pretty phenomenal."
Something rubs me the wrong way with this and I think I finally figured it out. Not only had he already made his million dollar salary and amassed a nice "nest egg", but the company itself should not exist. It's a credit card processing company for small businesses. He made a 7 figure salary being a middle-man, creating a business that has no productive value to society. He doesn't manufacture anything. He doesn't research anything for science/progress. His company just picks up the scraps from the banks that are too big to be bothered with the small details. This pretty much puts him and his company on the same level as the investment bankers, real estate agents and lawyers.
I thought this was relevant to the OP.
Do you constantly allow your power to be taken from you?
Are you aware of the effect this has on you energetically?
For a brief moment, take your mind back to your school days.
Do you remember a bully in the playground?
Maybe you were one who was bullied.
Maybe you were one who knew it was wrong and wanted to do something, but kept a low profile so the bully would not come after you.
In reality, there is not much difference between the one bullied and the one that stood by without taking action.
Both have their power taken away by another.
The only difference is that one is by violation, and the other is by fear.
The effect is the same.
Aren’t you glad those days have passed?
I propose they haven’t.
It is just that the bully of your adulthood wears different clothes from the school uniform of the past.
He, or she (or for that matter it, if we refer to the ‘system’) is still there trying to take your power.
The passive victim
Any time we make a decision not to do what is right for fear of reprisals, we surrender our power and adopt the role of the passive victim.
Most of us do it every day.
It is a choice we make, even though we may not realise it.
Maybe it is a choice of ‘better the devil we know’.
Maybe we prioritise our pleasure and comfort over the needs of another.
Maybe we choose to turn away from inequities because it is ‘too hard’.
Maybe we leave the battle for someone stronger.
Whatever the reasoning, it is still a choice that is made and it is our power that is surrendered.
The energetic effect of surrendering our power
On an energetic level, giving up our power creates a bind.
Energy is supposed to flow, but binding energy is held to us and restricts us like ropes or chains, and anything that is restricted cannot reach its full potential.
Imagine a life of subtle energetic binds placed around you continually.
Now imagine the effects of freeing yourself from those binds and allowing your wings to spread.
Which sounds better to you?
How would you like to live the rest of your life?
Consider this — every time you refuse to surrender your power, you loosen all of the energetic binds in place around you.
Do you see the potential power of a single action on a single day?
Now imagine this as a daily practice for the rest of your life.
Power through awareness
The level to which we realise that this process is happening is dependent upon our awareness of the way the ‘system’ works.
Life is full of situations where the needle of the moral compass points in a different direction to the way the ‘system’ would like us to behave, which is generally to initiate a fear response.
Each day we make decisions about which compass to navigate with.
Our actions today establish and reinforce our actions of tomorrow.
The energetic binds around us either get tighter or looser with every thought and action we take.
This is how we create our own future with our actions in the present.
If you could have your time again, would you stand up to the bully in the school yard and refuse to surrender your power?
Well, the good news is that you don’t have to wait until your next reincarnation!
Today, you will have the opportunity to step out from the shadow of fear and do what is right.
Affirmations can help.
At the start of each day, say to yourself “Today I will stand in my personal power”.
Make it a habit to see examples in your life where your personal power is challenged, and note your reaction to it.
Every time you make a decision to do what is right, you exercise standing in our true power.
Congratulate yourself every time you do not surrender your power.
With every thought and action we take, the energetic binds around us either get tighter or looser.
Feel those binds loosening — spread your wings!
Losing Our Power to Passive Victimization
Do you constantly allow your power to be taken from you?
Are you aware of the effect this has on you energetically?
For a brief moment, take your mind back to your school days.
Do you remember a bully in the playground?
Maybe you were one who was bullied.
Maybe you were one who knew it was wrong and wanted to do something, but kept a low profile so the bully would not come after you.
In reality, there is not much difference between the one bullied and the one that stood by without taking action.
Both have their power taken away by another.
The only difference is that one is by violation, and the other is by fear.
The effect is the same.
Aren’t you glad those days have passed?
I propose they haven’t.
It is just that the bully of your adulthood wears different clothes from the school uniform of the past.
He, or she (or for that matter it, if we refer to the ‘system’) is still there trying to take your power.
The passive victim
Any time we make a decision not to do what is right for fear of reprisals, we surrender our power and adopt the role of the passive victim.
Most of us do it every day.
It is a choice we make, even though we may not realise it.
Maybe it is a choice of ‘better the devil we know’.
Maybe we prioritise our pleasure and comfort over the needs of another.
Maybe we choose to turn away from inequities because it is ‘too hard’.
Maybe we leave the battle for someone stronger.
Whatever the reasoning, it is still a choice that is made and it is our power that is surrendered.
The energetic effect of surrendering our power
On an energetic level, giving up our power creates a bind.
Energy is supposed to flow, but binding energy is held to us and restricts us like ropes or chains, and anything that is restricted cannot reach its full potential.
Imagine a life of subtle energetic binds placed around you continually.
Now imagine the effects of freeing yourself from those binds and allowing your wings to spread.
Which sounds better to you?
How would you like to live the rest of your life?
Consider this — every time you refuse to surrender your power, you loosen all of the energetic binds in place around you.
Do you see the potential power of a single action on a single day?
Now imagine this as a daily practice for the rest of your life.
Power through awareness
The level to which we realise that this process is happening is dependent upon our awareness of the way the ‘system’ works.
Life is full of situations where the needle of the moral compass points in a different direction to the way the ‘system’ would like us to behave, which is generally to initiate a fear response.
Each day we make decisions about which compass to navigate with.
Our actions today establish and reinforce our actions of tomorrow.
The energetic binds around us either get tighter or looser with every thought and action we take.
This is how we create our own future with our actions in the present.
If you could have your time again, would you stand up to the bully in the school yard and refuse to surrender your power?
Well, the good news is that you don’t have to wait until your next reincarnation!
Today, you will have the opportunity to step out from the shadow of fear and do what is right.
Affirmations can help.
At the start of each day, say to yourself “Today I will stand in my personal power”.
Make it a habit to see examples in your life where your personal power is challenged, and note your reaction to it.
Every time you make a decision to do what is right, you exercise standing in our true power.
Congratulate yourself every time you do not surrender your power.
With every thought and action we take, the energetic binds around us either get tighter or looser.
Feel those binds loosening — spread your wings!
We can’t even provide running water now…all while Nestle bottles billions of gallons of water, and fracking wastes millions of gallons of water.
[video=youtube;JnkskGt4-w8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=JnkskGt4-w8[/video]
[video=youtube;JnkskGt4-w8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=JnkskGt4-w8[/video]
I feel like apathy stemms from whether it's a concern for our own lives. If we feel like [insert issue here] makes a difference to how we live our every day lives, whether it's physical or emotional, then we are more inclined to do something about it.