Priorities.

 Good day, World.

     Yesterday, I was able to be there for someone I loved in a time of tragedy. While I will not share details of what happened, I will say that it would shake the foundations of any person's family if it had occurred to them. The thing that made it more tragic is that it happened while this person was visiting me, meaning the rare moment they had time for respite from their already difficult life situation, said peace was destroyed by fate.  This situation was altogether horrifying, and my heart is broken on behalf of this person.

     However, I cannot linger upon it, as the same fate that brought this tragedy also taught me a valuable lesson. See, I would not have been there to support this person if I hadn't decided that their company was more important than finances in that moment. That morning, I was scheduled to be at work roughly an hour before the news broke. The night before, I had been pondering whether or not I wanted to continue working for someone who A.) attempted to emotionally manipulate me in order to make me feel bad about requesting time off, B.) had casually mentioned "high school hotties" living at one of his properties, and C.) I'd heard rattling on about Biden conspiracy theories and the murder of America by the Democrats. This was a cash paying job, and I was being considered for payroll at the time. Finally, after getting some counsel from my father, I'd decided twenty minutes before I was due to leave that no, I didn't wish to do that anymore. So, I prioritized my relationship with my friend over the hundred or so dollars that I would have received working that day, therefore making myself available when they needed my support. Else-wise, I would have been at work at the time the event transpired, having to either leave and hear more condemnation from the boss or not being permitted to leave at all, forcing me to hear their crying over the phone instead of on my shoulder.

     See, the super rich want you to constantly think that money is the ultimate goal. They do everything they can to manipulate you into a manic state, inflating prices while minimizing their workforce's hours so that your struggle to survive is at maximum profitability for them. They tease us with sales, deals, and promotions, the hyper-inflated costs temporarily knocked down to only three times what they paid for it instead of five while calling the fleecing "a deal." Recent times have shown that the rich do not like it when the proletariat plays the same games that they do with the nation's economy, therefore showing that yes, they do see us as mere pawns in their game. "Work forty hours a week, then give it all to us," the mouths chant, our blood dripping from their jaws. "Costs go up, 'it's the market,'" they say, red marker hovering over the price sheets as they look balefully to their not-quite-full safe of billions. The creatures have determined that if they make jobs never pay enough and goods too expensive, they can keep profiting off of us on both ends.

     However, more important than any of those things is being there for each other's needs. See, if humans were able to push past financial gain as their main objective, those who have convinced us to look no further would have a much more difficult time retaining their status and coffers. Every time there is a movement that is not framed around attaining money, it is demonized. From the LGBT Civil Rights Movement to the Black Panther Party, women's reproductive rights marches and protests about school shootings, every movement that involves unifying people and is not focused on a product or money is cut down by pundits, politicians, and news companies. The rich do not want the people's needs met, as when you have a contented society, the desire to purchase frivolities in order to cure the hole one feels in themselves diminishes. Why do you think the term "retail therapy" became a thing? It is obvious that the terminology comes from the concept of "buying things makes you feel good," and if that isn't the slogan for capitalism as a whole, I don't know what marketing is.

     In addition, the demonization of even the concept of unifying has begun from the pundits, with calls from the Left for unity and solidarity being called "hollow" and "lies." A very long time ago, I wrote that unification is a dangerous thing for those in power, that it behooves them to keep the people at each other's necks while they line their pockets and bolster their levels of influence on the world stage. On a financial level, the businesses do the same, making it taboo to discuss how much you're being paid, breaking up hours and scheduling in order to avoid paying overtime, fighting unions at every level they can manage to, ascribing a ridiculous level of importance to minutiae like uniforms, and inducing a class system within every single job. Now, your co-worker with different responsibilities and more experience is your "manager" or “supervisor,” if you wear the wrong color tie or shoes you get financially penalized, and Peggy Sue feels like she’s a better person than you because she’s wearing a badge with some words on it. 

Keep the people divided in any way they can. This is the will of the powerful.

     In spite of all this, it was more important for me to be with my friend than outside moving bricks. See, the rich have the convenience of having time to commune with each other. While we break our spines bowing to the schedules, routines, prices, and sacrifices that the elite have made for us, they gallivant about on their own time. That same boss that was guilting me about wanting a day off had told me earlier on that there may be days we don’t have work because he and his wife have been looking for an RV. The same person who was telling me that I needed to be a “man of my word” a few days before told me he’d randomly cancel work due to his affinity for a pleasure vehicle. The rich expect the poor to constantly labor to fill their pockets, and when that doesn’t happen, we are all “lazy and entitled.” Again, I have found myself working alone, attempting to create my own power base independently of these terrible people so that one day I may be one of the few counterexamples to this toxicity.   

     This independence from their grasp is the last thing that they want from us. To give oneself time to think past the programming is to liberate oneself from a single level of this hell they have created for us. Upward mobility is not given, but fought for, and the more of us that can buck the grind, the more of us that can take the time to change this world. We need time to be able to care about ourselves and others.