Our choices have a framework. Lifespan. We all have an expiration date and it always comes too soon. If you want to have no regrets when the curtain closes, do what is worthy of you. If your children and grandparents can’t take pride in how you earn a living, quit your job. Quit it if it harms others and forces you to become someone you are not. Quit a bad job. Earning a paycheck by increasing others’ misery harms your soul. Harming an eternal soul in a short mortal life is simply a poor choice. You and your loved ones deserve better. Do better in 2022.
If you are a debt collector, find better use for your skills. Andrew Leon is a 37-year-old veteran. As an artillery soldier, he crushed his right leg and injured his ear drum. His hearing is impaired, and it stops him from getting a good job his brilliance and intellect deserve. His credit is shot, and he can’t buy a home even with veterans’ benefits. He cringes every time a debt collector calls to collect on a decade old debt he has no money to pay back. The payment is out of his reach every year because the debt collector has added on massive amounts of interest. David Lee, age 41 is haunted by his 10-year-old education loan he took out for massage school. He has PTSD from his time in the Marines. He is socially awkward 20 years after leaving the Marines because he never integrated back in society and ricocheted all over America as a homeless man for six years before a social service agency rented him an apartment. The debt collectors are hot on their trails like laser-locked missiles wherever they go. Like cats waiting to pounce on mice the debt collectors are looking for a chance to garnish any money Drew or Dave might have. Don’t be the cause of others’ hardship.
This battle of sharp-tongued debt collection agents extracting every penny from already hardship-facing people goes on to the tune of $19B every year in America (source: IBIS World). The vultures feed on the already weak and broken people, pushing some into bankruptcy and sucking blood from others who can barely survive on their resources. For what? In 2021 an average debt collection agent makes less than $16/hour and is hired at $26K/year. Less than ten percent of the experienced ones make about $38K/year. (source: Zippia.com)
Only you can be the ultimate judge of whom you become. The only person we are entitled to judge is ourselves. No one knows our compelling reasons, actionable choices, or risks and opportunities. Nor do we have a window in other people’s lives. One thing we know to be true for all, almost always, is that when we do things that don’t match our inner core and authentic values, it diminishes us inside. A job’s requirement may call out specific actions making it necessary to take an action that contradicts our sense of justice or morality, but we do it because the job requires it. The consequence of not complying or even excelling would be losing the job. After the day, you feel like taking a shower and hiding from life because you feel like your life is awash in other peoples’ suffering and maybe you are even a cause of their hardship.
Years later, after leaving their jobs of exacting torture on people already in stress, they feel the remorse: managers whose main skill was to serve as hatchet men/women to lay people off; Insurance adjusters who trained to deny policy holders’ legitimate claims for repair; health insurance boards who honed their mission and rejected pleas of treatments; collection agency attorneys who thrive on garnishing wages and savings from people already in distress.
Soldiers, in particular regret being a part of the operations that deepened others’ pain. They pulled the trigger to follow orders knowing fully that the targets they were being commanded to prosecute were innocent civilians. They see blood on their hands and feel so disgusted by their own actions that they even decline the government care and benefits they have earned in following their government’s orders because they see the benefits as blood-money. Many prefer to go homeless rather than taking help from the government and the military they served. John Gar, age 55 was in the US Navy for 20 years. He can receive $3500/month for his PTSD condition. Instead, he is living as a homeless man with his service dog somewhere in Colorado because he regrets having followed orders to kill. He suffers from nightmares remembering the faces of those he killed, and he asks why he had the right to take others’ lives. If you are pulling the triggers to cause emotional hurt or injury in your job, you are soldiers too, in a war you are fighting for someone else’s profit.
Simply following direction to earn a living is not a good enough justification to cause hardship to others. The blood on our hands and the blots our actions leave on our conscience are a price too dear for one lifetime. It haunts people. You will remember the faces of fear, cries of pain, and the horror of loss at their hands. It’s not work fit for any human, to cause pain for money. It’s not good money.
Earning a livelihood by removing food from another’s table or robbing peace in return for a small pay that earns massive incomes for their paymasters, the insurance company, or credit card companies is not good for the eternal soul in a short mortal life
The already rich bosses and owners attend charity balls while their minions do the dirty work of parceling out pain, distress, anxiety, and fear from their cubicles of phone banks. The bosses don’t care for the hunted or the armies of people who do the hunting on their behalf. In the name of justice, laws enacted by humans against humans, empower employees, lawyers, and contractors to poke, hammer, and beat down humans in less fortunate circumstances. Simply put, it’s bad work.
Don’t mute your humanity and cage your conscience! Don’t do this work that keeps fellow humans in anxiety and worry. They go to bed cursing their fate and petrified of your phone call, court notice, or police showing up at their door. They curse you for your threats and persecution.
For whom are you fighting? The banks who get help from governments and never pass the massive gains to employees or customers? Who stands to protect the average citizen? The government has covered billions in losses for big companies. You are chasing a poor family for a few hundred or thousand dollars? The loss of billions makes little impact to big companies, whereas to an average citizen, even tens of dollars or a hundred dollars can be the difference between a cold or warm home in winter, one or no meal a day, or medication or not every day.
Don’t be a pawn for the banks who made bad loans. Don’t make debt collectors rich in collecting whatever is left in the hands of those who went broke caring for their loved one. Don’t do the bidding for bad people. You don’t need blood or evil of harassing another who is already knocked down. They don’t need another kick in their teeth. Walk away. You don’t know if someone had serious losses due to poor judgment or genuine health hardships. Be an agent of good. Don’t be the extended evil arm that brings misery.
When you are bright, you can earn a livelihood. When you are bright and good, you can earn blessings by helping, uplifting, and inspiring others. When you are good, you will earn peace because you will do what’s good and stay away from what causes anxiety to people. You will sleep with peace and make other’s lives more peaceful. You will earn love, respect, honor, and blessings. New doors will open for your potential. Success, wealth, and connections will come uninvited and in abundance. Life will lift you up.
How can I be confident that you will make a better living and life? If you have been a part of an operation to extract payments, or you have turned down claims or treatments, you already have analytical and communications skills. You are disciplined to interpret rules and comply with them, and you know how to use the tools of communications.
Apply your skills to do good. It might do you good to be a part of a non-profit that helps those in hardship. Err on the side of the good. Put your skills to use to help people rebuild their lives. Start with an inventory of your skills. Seek expert assessment and advice. Learn where those skills can earn you a better living and allow you to experience deep satisfaction in your work and life. Do that.
Life’s too short to be a cause of anxiety for others. You don’t want people going to bed cursing your very existence. Why earn ill-will and for what benefit? Instead, bring joy to people, let them thank you for every interaction, let them send you good wishes, and let them bless you for your goodness. When you lift others up, your spirits will also fly.
Do what is worthy of you. Live a life of bringing light to others. Uplift and inspire. Live inspired. You deserve a life of fulfillment and peace. Bring peace to those whom you touch, and you will have it too.
If you are in a job that hurts others and makes you feel diminished after your work shift, and you need to wash off the day’s slime before seeing your loved ones after work, you owe this to yourself to find a better mission. If you can’t get help elsewhere, email me and I will help you. If you are willing to do the work, I will help you build a better life.
To learn more about my approach to finding and aligning authenticity and purpose, you can begin with my book, Find Your Everest before someone chooses it for you.