On Carrer, Goals and Lifestyle

Year's end is always a time for reflection, and on top of that, in the lastest week I've completed 4 years at the company I currently work for, which is not much longer than my total experience as a software engineer, but it has been days of reflection about my career, the lessons learned, those yet to be learned, and many doubts about the future. Questions like "where should I focus my energy in the next 4 years?", "should I challenge myself more? in what sense?", "should I focus on getting a promotion?". All questions I've been mulling over in my head every time I reflect.

We dedicate a lot of our daily time to work, that's very common, but there has been a growing trend in recent years: even when we're not officially at work, we're dedicating time to something out of the need for work and income, the whole idea of being "your own entrepreneur". In the Achievement Society — as Byung-Chul Han describes it — we are always chasing more productivity, efficiency, usefulness, because the environment around us is constantly reminding us that we are never enough, and we pressure ourselves to achieve goals that often aren't even our own.

But I can't stop thinking that this kind of feeling has only increased in recent years. This year, working remotely, I moved back to the farming village where I grew up and lived most of my life. The cultural contrast started to catch my attention and made me think about the different ways of living in this world, and how passively we live according to the way we are induced by the environment around us.

Here, there is no pressure to live for the sake of being productive; no one is financially wealthy. Some have more than others, but most families work all week in different ways to earn money and live in a peaceful environment without excessive traffic on the streets, constant noise, high walls, or fear when leaving home and, nearest to nature. There are precarious and informal jobs and a lot of worker exploitation, but compared to the work culture in big cities like the capitals, there doesn’t seem to be much self-imposed pressure for performance. Most people just want to earn their money at the end of the month, pay their bills, and live a little when they’re not working— whether playing football, volleyball, going out with the family to an igarapé (a small Amazon creek), to eat out, etc.

a photo from my little and lovely community in Brazil

In the urban world, everything is a product being sold, including leisure. Meanwhile, in the rural area, there are still leisure alternatives like in the old days. There are still open igarapés where you don’t have to pay to swim, you don’t need to rent a sports court to play futsal or volleyball. It’s common to gather with friends and chat in front of the house or in the square, play dominoes in the late afternoon at someone’s house, and much more.

All of this is as it has always been, but a little time under the corporativist culture has made me value it much more. Is this not how life should actually be? Simple.

The contradictions of the capitalism are on such a savage scale in the metropolis that it’s hard to imagine “life beyond work” for a worker. Today, I reflect on the future. I am a software engineer; there is no “market” for me in a rural community. The simple fact of my choosing a simple life (happier and lighter) in the countryside might consequently become an obstacle in my professional development. Even though I don’t aspire to this concept of “success” in the neoliberal way, I believe it’s an inevitable pressure.