I know that on reading this question, a good many people wondered what the added value of such a question could be. Some, thinking of their employers, may have told themselves that they work for Shell, Bell, Canal +, Banque Populaire, the government, and so on.
And yet that is a fine way of going astray. For the purposes of this article, "who do you work for?" is synonymous with "to what or to whom do you direct the income from your work?" .
This question, simplistic though it appears, in fact conceals a great many parameters and a whole philosophy of life. It is intimately bound up with the joy, or the happiness, one might have in life, generally speaking.
I have questioned a good many people on the subject, and the trend is often the same. The priorities a salary goes to are generally these: the family, the house, the children, expenses such as bills, insurance, investments, and so on. All in all, few people devote a share of their income to themselves, to their own well-being.
Several studies have shown that the happiest individuals are the ones who find a share for themselves in the pay they bring home. At this point, I would very much like to be properly understood: the aim is not to live a selfish life, offhand and detached from one’s surroundings, piling up debts and fleeing one’s responsibilities. May lightning strike me down tomorrow at noon if I were ever to advise such a thing to one of my readers.
Before getting to the heart of the matter, let us take a small step back and look at our present surroundings, in Africa as much as in the West.
In Africa, if you so much as have a job, the entire family, from uncles to aunties by way of cousins female, cousins male and long-sleeve relatives, leans on you. You often receive untimely visits, self-interested requests, unexpected calls asking you to do this or that.
In the West, the deal is more or less the same, with an additional layer of complexity. The ten (10) types of askers come rushing at you before you have had time to find your bearings and set out some scale of priorities. To that, add the thousand and one fixed charges of the European or North American environment. Oh yes, we are far from out of the woods.
At the heart of these preoccupations, in Africa and in the West alike, sits the money you earned by the sweat of your brow. In this tangle, in this world in constant motion that grants you no respite, it is important to sit yourself down and ask what you really do with the money you earn through your activities: who, concretely, you are working for.
It is true that we could hardly live in self-sufficiency and behave as though we lived on an isolated island. We could hardly remain unmoved by the hardship and the difficulties our loved ones are going through. We could hardly ignore a relative’s declining health or the care needed by an uncle who has had an accident. On another note, it is human to be moved by the urge to help by supporting an acquaintance’s project.
All of that is well and good. And yet it is when a layer of obligation and self-forgetting comes to colour the whole thing that the picture darkens.
It is essential to work for yourself and to grant yourself a far from negligible share of the money you make. The fact is that problems will never end, illnesses will never cease and hardship will always be somewhere in our neighbourhood, no matter how much money we devote to the needs of others.
Put yourself at the centre of the machine and, the next time your pay comes in, buy yourself a gift, treat yourself to a trip, take yourself out to a restaurant you have always dreamed of, and so on. Find your own pleasure, as you see fit. But do find it, without fail, and be the one focus of attention in this scheme.
This practice, far from pulling you away from your goals and from those around you, will bring you closer to both. We can agree that critics will always exist, but you cannot embrace all the misery of the world. Recentring yourself will make you a better person, a more balanced one, and you will be more productive at work and in your affairs. On the relational side, you will offer the best version of yourself to your loved ones at all times and, in the end, that is what all of this is about.
Help others and be generous, all the while being generous with yourself. The aim is not to live beyond your means but to have the means to live your life. Your real life, as you conceive of it. When you know who you are working for, you will know who you are living for.
M. Z.
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