Would anybody like to offer me a job? haha.

Tribal Workers

Today’s generation of high-earning professionals maintain that their personal fulfilment comes from their jobs and the hours they work. They should grow up, says Thomas Barlow.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited

A friend of mine recently met a young American woman who was studying on a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford. She already had two degrees from top US universities, had worked as a lawyer and as a social worker in the US, and somewhere along the way had acquired a black belt in kung fu. Now, however, her course at Oxford was coming to an end and she was thoroughly angst-ridden about what to do next.

Her problem was no ordinary one.

She couldn’t decide whether she should make a lot of money as a corporate lawyer/management consultant, devote herself to charity work helping battered wives in disadvantaged Communities, or go to Hollywood to work as a stunt double in kung fu films. What most struck my friend was not the disparity of this woman’s choices, but the earnestness and bad grace with which she ruminated on them. It was almost as though she begrudged her own talents, Opportunities and freedom – as though the world had treated her unkindly by forcing her to make such a hard choice.

Her case is symptomatic of our times. In recent years, there has grown up a culture of discontent among the highly educated young something that seems to flare up, especially, when people reach their late 20s and early 30s. It arises not from frustration caused by lack of opportunity, as may have been true in the past, but from an excess of possibilities.

Most theories of adult developmental psychology have a special category for those in their late 20s and early 30s.

Whereas the early to mid-20s are seen as a time to establish one’s mode of living, the late 20s to early 30s are often considered a period of reappraisal. In a society where people marry and have children young, where financial burdens accumulate early, and where job markets are inflexible, such appraisals may not last long. But when people manage to remain free of financial or family burdens, and where the perceived opportunities for alternative careers are many, the reappraisal is likely to be strong.

Among no social group is this more true than the modern, International, professional elite: that tribe of young bankers, lawyers, consultants and managers for whom financial, familial, personal, corporate and (increasingly) national ties have become irrelevant. Often they grew up in one country, were educated in another, and are now working in a third.

They are independent, well paid, and enriched by experiences that many of their parents could only dream of. Yet, by their late 20s, many carry a sense of disappointment: that for all their opportunities, freedoms and achievements, life has not delivered quite what they had hoped. At the heart of this disillusionment lies a new attitude towards work.

The idea has grown up, in recent years, that work should not be just a means to an end a way to make money, support a family, or gain social prestige but should provide a rich and fulfilling experience in and of itself. Jobs are no longer just jobs; they are lifestyle options. Recruiters at financial companies, consultancies and law firms have promoted this conception of work. Job advertisements promise challenge, wide experiences, opportunities for travel and relentless personal development.

Michael is a 33-year-old management consultant who has bought into this vision of late-20th century work. Intelligent and well-educated – with three degrees, including a doctorate – he works in Munich, and has a “stable, long-distance relationship” with a woman living in California. He takes 140 flights a year and works an average of 80 hours a week. Some weeks he works more than 100 hours.

When asked if he likes his job, he will say: “I enjoy what I’m doing in terms of the intellectual challenges.” Although he earns a lot, he doesn’t spend much. He rents a small apartment, though he is rarely there, and has accumulated very few possessions. He justifies the long hours not in terms of wealth-acquisition, but solely as part of a “learning experience”.

This attitude to work has several interesting implications, mostly to do with the shifting balance between work and non-work, employment and leisure. Because fulfilling and engrossing work – the sort that is thought to provide the most intense learning experience – often requires long hours or captivates the imagination for long periods of time, it is easy to slip into the idea that the converse is also true: that just by working long hours, one is also engaging in fulfilling and engrossing work. This leads to the popular fallacy that you can measure the value of your job (and, therefore, the amount you are learning from it) by the amount of time you spend on it. And, incidentally, when a premium is placed on learning rather than earning, people are particularly susceptible to this form of self-deceit.

Thus, whereas in the past, when people in their 20s or 30s spoke disparagingly about nine-to-five jobs it was invariably because they were seen as too routine, too unimaginative, or too bourgeois. Now, it is simply because they don’t contain enough hours.

Young professionals have not suddenly developed a distaste for leisure, but they have solidly bought into the belief that a 45-hour week necessarily signifies an unfulfilling job. Jane, a 29-year-old corporate lawyer who works in the City of London, tells a story about working on a deal with another lawyer, a young man in his early 30s. At about 3am, he leant over the boardroom desk and said: “Isn’t this great? This is when I really love my job.” What most struck her about the remark was that the work was irrelevant (she says it was actually rather boring); her colleague simply liked the idea of working late. “It’s as though he was validated, or making his life important by this,” she says.

Unfortunately, when people can convince themselves that all they need do in order to lead fulfilled and happy lives is to work long hours, they can quickly start to lose reasons for their existence. As they start to think of their employment as a lifestyle, fulfilling and rewarding of itself – and in which the reward is proportional to hours worked – people rapidly begin to substitute work for other aspects of their lives.

Michael, the management consultant, is a good example of this phenomenon. He is prepared to trade (his word) not just goods and time for the experience afforded by his work, but also a substantial measure of commitment in his personal relationships. In a few months, he is being transferred to San Francisco, where he will move in with his girlfriend. But he’s not sure that living the same house is actually going to change the amount of time he spends on his relationship. “Once I move over, my time involvement on my relationship will not change significantly. My job takes up most of my time and pretty much dominates what I do, when, where and how I do it,” he says. Moreover, the reluctance to commit time to a relationship because they are learning so much, and having such an intense and fulfilling time at work is compounded, for some young professionals, by a reluctance to have a long-term relationship at all.

Today, by the time someone reaches 30, they could easily have had three or four jobs in as many different cities – which is not, as it is often portrayed, a function of an insecure global job-market, but of choice. Robert is 30 years old. He has three degrees and has worked on three continents. He is currently working for the United Nations in Geneva. For him, the most significant deterrent when deciding whether to enter into a relationship is the likely transient nature of the rest of his life. “What is the point in investing all this emotional energy and exposing myself in a relationship, if I am leaving in two months, or if I do not know what I am doing next year?” he says.

Such is the character of the modern, international professional, at least throughout his or her 20s. Spare time, goods and relationships, these are all willingly traded for the exigencies of work. Nothing is valued so highly as accumulated experience. Nothing is neglected so much as commitment. With this work ethic – or perhaps one should call it a “professional development ethic” – becoming so powerful, the globally mobile generation now in its late 20s and early 30s has garnered considerable professional success. At what point, though, does the experience-seeking end?

Kathryn is a successful American academic, 29, who bucked the trend of her generation: she recently turned her life round for someone else. She moved to the UK, specifically, to be with a man, a decision that she says few of her contemporaries understood. “We’re not meant to say: ‘I made this decision for this person. Today, you’re meant to do things for yourself. If you’re willing to make sacrifices for others – especially if you’re a woman – that’s seen as a kind of weakness. I wonder, though, is doing things for yourself really empowerment, or is liberty a kind of trap?” she says.

For many, it is a trap that is difficult to break out of, not least because they are so caught up in a culture of professional development. And spoilt for choice, some like the American Rhodes Scholar no doubt become paralysed by their opportunities, unable to do much else in their lives, because they are so determined not to let a single one of their chances slip. If that means minimal personal commitments well into their 30s, so be it. “Loneliness is better than boredom” is Jane’s philosophy.

And, although she knows “a lot of professional single women who would give it all up if they met a rich man to marry”, she remains far more concerned herself about finding fulfillment at work. “I am constantly questioning whether I am doing the right thing here,” she says. “There’s an eternal search for a more challenging and satisfying option, a better lifestyle. You always feel you’re not doing the right thing always feel as if you should be striving for another goal,” she says.

Jane, Michael, Robert and Kathryn grew up as part of a generation with fewer social constraints determining their futures than has been true for probably any other generation in history. They were taught at school that when they grew up they could “do anything”, “be anything”. It was an idea that was reinforced by popular culture, in films, books and television.

The notion that one can do anything is clearly liberating. But life without constraints has also proved a recipe for endless searching, endless questioning of aspirations. It has made this generation obsessed with self-development and determined, for as long as possible, to minimise personal commitments in order to maximise the options open to them. One might see this as a sign of extended adolescence.

Eventually, they will be forced to realise that living is as much about closing possibilities as it is about creating them.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited

Bear with me. I guess I write this, because I want to challenge you about living a life that is missing something that is so readily available…

The bible is a truly revolutionary and magical book. What is it that has kept intelligent and qualified people pouring over it for centuries? Men have devoted their lives to the truth of it, woman have dedicated themselves to the God it speaks of and children have been taught to uphold its principles the world over. For the two thousand years since the coming, subsequent death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, his fame has grown and whole communities have come to know him as their personal saviour. People have perverted the Christian faith, justified the crusades, started wars and even built churches. What is it about this truth contained in the bible that keeps the fire of its words burning?

Unlike any other faith, Christianity requires nothing of its followers other than to believe that The Christ has come. While this may be difficult for people who have seen churched Christianity to understand- Christ did everything on the cross. This is not a religion of behaviour modification; it is a faith built on surrender and relationship. Building on the Jewish faith, Christians believe that Jesus is the saviour that the Israelites had always been waiting for. If this is true, then he is the final Passover Lamb.

Why would humankind require a ‘lamb’ sacrifice? This is in order to render a dark world- pure and allow us to re-enter into the presence of the Most High. God is perfect love. There is no place for sin and rebellion in God’s kingdom. This is why Adam and Eve were cast from the garden of Eden. They chose to eat of the forbidden fruit, and when God came to walk with them they hid from him. And the punishment for their disobedience was death. For it is Adam’s sin, and ours that prevents us from having a living relationship with God.

But not even sin can hold us.

The creator of the universe so desired relationship (it is there in the trinity displaying his heart) that He created man and the bible says; God walked with Adam in the garden. Adam, a man was a friend of God. This was not some distant act of charity for the mere human; it was the manifestation of God’s desire for relationship.

The bible argues that God’s desire –for friendship with man- has not gone away. The bible and history portray Jesus as the man who professed to restore that relationship by taking on the sin of the world, rendering us blameless in God’s sight. Therefore, not even sin can keep us from His love, because of the power of the cross. The biggest deception since the ‘apple in the garden’ is the one that dismisses the cross.

Many people have been mislead about Jesus through the out workings of Christianity. The church has done its fair share of damage. The acceptance of pagan symbolism and celebrations early on in the faith, the internal divisions and disagreements, the self righteousness, judgement and exclusivity over the ages have made it almost impossible for Jesus to be represented as he was. It would shock most people to really see the Jesus of the bible, unclean and socialising with ‘sinners’, defying the Jewish laws on the Sabbath, dancing at a wedding, laughing with his friends and some perfect combination of humility and self-importance. Jesus knew he was ‘the way’. He spoke openly about it.

C.S. Lewis, says that either we accept Jesus as the saviour He professed to be, or we must dismiss him as entirely crazy. To think of him as a good man, would be ludicrous. Was He who He said he was? I cannot tell you. You must decide this for yourself, but I believe that if you ask God to reveal it to you, in the quietness of your heart, and you soften your ideas about it, you may be surprised.

But finally, why am I writing all of this ‘Christian babble’ as a conversation to create change? Simply because I believe that if the world begins to understand The Creator of the Universe desires an active and living relationship with them. He has solved the problem of their sinfulness and desires to ‘walk’, as it were, in the garden with them. Then we can no longer be angry and hurt, we can no longer separate ourselves with the man on the street or the woman in Iraq, with the kids in Khayelitsha or even the Pope because we are all the same. And God wants to walk with us, to know us, to call us friend.

Will you take a walk with your Father in the garden?

Shaun Tomson’s Surfer’s Code:

1. I will never turn my back on the ocean.
2. I will always paddle back out.
3. I will take the drop with commitment.
4. I will know that there will always be another wave.
5. I will realize that all surfers are joined by one ocean.
6. I will paddle around the impact zone.
7. I will never fight a rip tide.
8. I will watch out for other surfers after a big set.
9. I will pass on my stoke to a non-surfer.
10. I will ride, and not paddle in to shore.
11. I will catch a wave every day, even in my mind.
12. I will honor the sport of kings.

John Kasaona gives this impassioned ted-talk on “how poachers became caretakers in Namibia”. He needs help replicating what has happened in Namibia, into other countries… Mongolia and beyond! South Africa has a campaign at the moment to save the Rhino’s, perhaps John has some more insight…

So, how can poachers become caretakers?

“We were successful in Namibia, because we dreamed of a future that was much more than just a healthy wildlife, we knew conservation will fail if it doesn’t work to improve the life of the local communities!”

I’m speechless.

What do we do about the fact that most car guards from the DRC have qualifications we could never anticipate? While many refugees can’t speak English, they are well-educated individuals who have had to give up their homes and lives to “avoid unrest” (to put it lightly) in their home country. We should not only be passing them small change through our windows, we should be weeping at their tales of heartache. I dare you to ask someone their story before you pass over the change.

The world of refugee’s in South Africa

When an asylum seeker (refugee) arrives in South Africa, they have 10 days to report to the refugee office/ home affairs, before they are classified as illegal. They are then given temporary asylum seeker papers. These are supposed to be interim papers, while refugee status is applied for. PROBLEM- the period for processing of refugee applications is between 3 months and 3 years. PROBLEM- few refugees arrive with any luggage, let alone money to start a life. Asylum papers only last 3 months but you can “work and study”. PROBLEM-  few people will employ someone who has to take a day off work every three months to renew their papers.

Once a date is set for an interview, a refugee can compile their case as to why they left home and why they should not be forced to go home. Genocide, civil war, famine, militia army invasions, rape and threat of death or wrongful imprisonment are some of the reasons that qualify. PROBLEM- refugees are often traumatised, homeless and alone when they arrive in South Africa. PROBLEM- few are fluent in English or any of the other 11 official languages.

Once a refugee’s case has been heard, they will either be granted refugee status, or deported. PROBLEM- this is a merciless process. For those who are identified as ‘genuine asylum seekers’ – refugee status is granted. Refugees can both study and work with Refugee status. Security jobs or jobs requiring police clearance are no longer possible for refugees to work. PROBLEM- many refugees are employed illegally, below minimum wage and in dire conditions. Many professions require permanent residence, which means that South Africa can’t absorb skilled labour.

South Africa has a major shortage of nursing staff and doctors. Yet refugees are not allowed to take the tests to transfer their skills until they have permanent residence. What if we changed giving skilled asylum seekers refugee papers, to giving the skilled Visa’s.  That would mean they could transfer their skills. Imagine a world of productivity, out of heartache. Instead of just filling up the car parks.

After 5 years as a refugee in South Africa, they can apply for permanent residence. PROBLEM- If however, you have lived in South Africa for 5 years and your home country is once again peaceful- you may not stay in South Africa and will be forged to return home.. PROBLEM- If you have made a happy life for yourself in SA after being chased away from your home, the government says: “well sorry, but you have to go”.

They say people will make the same movies they made about Rwanda and Uganda, for the Congo. What will you tell your children you did during those years? Maybe we should be doing more than handing out loose change? How about training refugees as baristas? How about starting French call centres? Or maybe Training centres? French only R&D labs? Or changing medical worker policies? English schools? Something…

Many of you may already know that (My friend TIVAN BUMSTEAD) has become involved in an awesome anti-poaching campaign to try to save some rhinos! And lots of people want to know how they can get involved or help out some more, so here are a few ways you can help – all really easy!

A letter from Tivan:

There are also two follow-up clips to look at – just click on the “4 videos” button under the title to see the others. And a censored version for the kiddies…

Send the link to as many people as possible in as many ways as possible – email, status updates, twitter etc

2) Like our page “Stop Poaching Our Rhino” on Facebook and suggest other friends to like it too. The more people like it the more influence we have!

3) Follow us on Twitter “@rodneytherhino” and tweet about us as much as possible please – including the YouTube link.

4) Make friends with our mascot Rodney “Rodney Rhino” on Facebook.

5) Clip your own nails and hair and post it off to the following central address, from where we will collect it all and then send it off:

P.O. BOX 15565
Sinoville
0129
South Africa

6) Make your own video of yourself clipping your nails and hair and upload it on YouTube as a video response to our clip!!!

7) Check out www.stoprhinopoaching.com for more information about rhino poaching and how you can help more!

Email us at rodneytherhino@gmail.com for more info about how to help.

If you have any other ideas or know of anyone else who can/would like to help, please tell them about the campaign – celebrities, people in television, radio, print or social networking that can help us spread the word, anyone at all!!!

But mostly please just spread the link as far and wide as possible – post it all over your newsfeed and show your friends – we need as many hits as possible!!!

Thanks so much!

Tivan “)

Easy and certain

“NOTHING TO WEAR”

This very cool T-shirt was no longer just a fussy fashion statement, its actually true…

So we are still in need of CHILDRENS clothes! There really arent any kids shoes, undies or pants or T-shirts.

If you are a parent, or know parents wont you please see if you have anything for the MASI kids?

YAY! Big love again and thanks so much to everyone who has been so helpful and GENEROUS!

LOVE LOTS

I have just finished sorting clothes with my Vega students at the ALL  NATIONS Base in Vishoek. We still need lots of children’s clothes.

The BIGGEST need at the moment is money to buy MATERIAL for building and BIG STRONG HANDS with tools to come and BUILD.

See the details below to donate financially directly to ALL NATIONS

FINANCIAL GIVING INFORMATION:
Crisis Relief Fund:
South Africa
account #: 076721051
Standard Bank, Fish Hoek
Branch Code: 03600980

If you can help BUILD call ANNA CHAN +27712820067.

Awesome, Thanks so much for all of the LOVE and SUPPORT.

Keep it up!