The vast majority of the world’s population is compelled (or involuntarily driven) into an occupation that does not fulfil them personally or financially, says Waqās Ahmed
Most employees become slaves to the circumstances in which they find themselves. Free will, it seems, is just an illusion. It is one of the most unfortunate realities of our times; a tragic blow to human dignity and a criminal suppression of human potential.
One of the reasons why lifelong specialists become so is that they make a particular professional choice early on in life – either because it was of interest at the time but most often because of various social and financial circumstances – which they are then obliged to continue because it has come to define them. It’s an unbreakable cycle; whatever your original skill, you will be typecast (both by society and ironically your own self) and thereafter entrapped. For example, an employer will identify in an employee’s application what appears to be the closest thing to a ‘core skill’ or field, usually in the form of an academic qualification or work experience. The next employer does the same, as does the next, and so on. The chances of getting a job are thus highest when the applicant demonstrates an exclusive and unfaltering focus on one specialty.
This is a deeply entrenched culture, an invisible force pulling one deeper and deeper into a narrowing hole, which after a while becomes almost impossible to climb out of. It is a kind of slavery, an unspoken human bondage. At best this instils an acceptance in the employee’s mind that this lifelong specialisation is the only way of surviving and progressing, but often creates a sense of total disillusionment with the system.
This disillusionment, perhaps ironically, is arguably greater in the ‘developed’ world today than in the poorer societies with which it is most commonly associated. The division of labour, what Marx referred to as the ‘tying down of individuals to a particular calling’, is still the status quo, trapping people inside what Weber called the ‘iron cage’. Although the work landscape in the West has changed significantly since Studs Terkel published conversations with disenchanted workers of various fields in the 1970s, the general feeling of discomfort, dissatisfaction and disillusionment remains among the general populace. Due to the relatively recent exportation of manual or blue-collar work to developing countries, much of the workforce in developed countries are now either unemployed or in white-collar (desk) jobs.
‘Sitting is the new smoking’
While the emergence of this desk-job culture has in some ways been beneficial for individuals and economies (as apparently reflective of societal progress – the notion that sitting behind a desk appears somehow to be more respectable than physical labour), the truth is that it has created a mentally and physically frustrated workforce. ‘Sitting is the new smoking’, according to Professor Steve Bevan, director of the Centre for Workforce Effectiveness at the Work Foundation. ‘The more sedentary you are the worse it is for your health’. Not only does this constrain a natural human urge for physical movement (as stressed by the physical training philosophies of Ido Portal and Edwin le Corre), it also has consequences for the economy at large.
In the UK, for example, almost thirty one million days of work were lost last year due to back, neck and muscle problems, according to the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) – very few of these were a result of an injury obtained from physical activity. It is staying put, it turns out, which causes more absences that are more prolonged than any other ailment.
It is not surprising that very few (if any) polymaths over history lived such sedentary lives – even the intellectuals; most were in fact dynamic scholar adventurers. Perhaps more importantly though, the desk-job culture, which the great spiritualist Jiddu Krishnamurti called a ‘monstrous rat-race’ and an ‘intolerable imprisonment’, has serious psychological effects on employees.
The majority of people today are clearly frustrated and unhappy with their current occupation. According to a recent survey in the UK, only 20% of people are happy at work (Roth and Harter, 2010), a figure that has fallen dramatically from 60% in 1987. This dissatisfaction has a lot to do with the level of stimulation people get from their jobs. In a 2008 survey, over half of the UK workforce admitted they lack stimulation at work, with only 10% stating they experience a high level of stimulation. Over 60% of workers are not truly engaged in what they do (Towers Perrin/Gallup). Employee engagement has hovered around the 30% mark in North America for a while, and with a notoriously disengaged millennial workforce (87% of whom put personal development as top priority as a work objective), employers are struggling to understand how to retain and maximise employee potential.
Indeed, ‘employee engagement’ (or lack thereof) is now becoming a worldwide phenomenon, and frequent surveys are being done to measure this. While most of these studies are conducted in Europe and the United States, there is evidence to show that this is a worldwide trend. According to a recent study by Accenture which surveyed a sample from 36,000 professionals from 18 countries across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South America, North America and Asia, almost half felt they were not being significantly challenged in their current roles despite most being confident about their skills and capabilities.
Frustration and monotony
This frustration has to do with the monotony of one career as much as with the job or employer itself. According to a study by the School of Life, some 60% of employees would choose a different career if they could start again, 20% of us believe we’ve never had a role that suited us and 30% of employees feel their strengths would be better suited to another career.
When companies downsize, they often use the services of ‘outplacement consultants’ to provide redundant employees with counsel and guidance on next steps. As part of some outplacement programmes, psychological experiments are done to reveal the person’s inner career dreams with a view to ascertaining his or her next career steps. What is often found, rather unsurprisingly, is an enormous disparity between the person’s real career and desired career. Accountants wished they were magicians, web designers wished they were musicians, office managers wished they were professional athletes, and so on. There is a sense of bitter regret; that they have been swept away unwillingly by a relentless current into the futility of the open sea, to which they must ultimately resign themselves.
This is an edited extract from The Polymath: Unlocking the Power of Human Versatility by Waqās Ahmed (Wiley, 2019)
Waqās has been called ‘an emerging young Leonardo da Vinci’ for his work in various fields. He is currently Artistic Director at The Khalili Collections – one of the world’s great art collections – and is simultaneously completing his postgraduate studies in Neuroscience at Kings College, London.
Previously, Waqās was Global Correspondent at FIRST Magazine, where his exclusive interviews included world leaders in government, business and academia. He was also the editor of Holy Makkah, the first-of-its-kind exploration of the sacred city, which received praise from UNESCO, the Commonwealth and the Vatican.
Born and raised in Britain, Waqās has since lived in several countries across Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. He has degrees in Economics (BSc, SOAS) and International Relations (MSc, LSE), but his real education came from the five years he spent travelling the world researching and writing The Polymath, his first book. www.the-polymath.com
