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Antiwork

Confessions of a future wage slave

Not sure if this is the right place to put this, but it’s just something I can’t seem to get my mind off of. I’m (22m) a student at university nearing the end of my bachelors degree. To go into my field I need a masters degree in my country. Either way, at the moment I cannot work, the work load per semester I get is crippling, this week I have not gone to class once because I am too busy sitting at home doing whatever assignments pop up on my online university portal. I don’t go to the gym or eat healthy because I just feel like I am wasting time that I could spend using getting whatever task turned in. I used to be motivated to put up with this life style for a few months out of the year to be able to get a job that…


Not sure if this is the right place to put this, but it’s just something I can’t seem to get my mind off of. I’m (22m) a student at university nearing the end of my bachelors degree. To go into my field I need a masters degree in my country. Either way, at the moment I cannot work, the work load per semester I get is crippling, this week I have not gone to class once because I am too busy sitting at home doing whatever assignments pop up on my online university portal. I don’t go to the gym or eat healthy because I just feel like I am wasting time that I could spend using getting whatever task turned in. I used to be motivated to put up with this life style for a few months out of the year to be able to get a job that would have routine and stability. Slowly but surely this motivation has been lost as I have come to see all work as a form of slavery. Everyday I wake up and I feel trapped, first by university, which I imagine as slightly better than joining the work force, then by my inevitable future of spending 40 hours a week working. I can only imagine these 40 hours will only cover my basic needs to survive, namely an apartment I will never own, and basic needs like food, medical insurance, my medications and miscellaneous household/hygiene products etc. I think of those 40 hours, how life is so short, and how those hours could be spent with people I love, learning a new skill or hobby that enriches my life and enjoyment of the world, or even taking that time to reflect on who I am or taking care of myself, will be used up by repetitive tasks that will never end for me cause there’s no hope of retirement. The career I’ve chosen was supposedly one of the best careers for my disability, yet I can only imagine seeing myself come home from work completely drained, unable to function for 5 days out of the week at home where the two days of break I have during the week will either be used to take care of myself, my household and other various errands or I can neglect that basic self care to spend time with friends or visit family. Meanwhile, I inevitably see characters on social media living beautiful free lives thanks to inter-generational wealth that has been accumulated through the exploitation of people like future me or my family and hoarded within some sort of neo-aristocracy. I try to imagine sisyphus smiling truly, and I do enjoy working when I am not alienated from my work/when I work under non-survival circumstances, but at the end of the day I know I will be nothing more than a wage-slave.

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