Slavery is not a topic we often think about now, do we? It’s been banned for a long time. Little bit of trivia, in 1794, France of all countries was the first country to ban slavery. Eighteen o seven, Britain, largest empire on earth at the time, 25% of all the Earth’s land mass was controlled by Britain. So Britain abolished the slave trade.
And then in 1834, Britain passed the slavery abolition act. Nineteen twenty six, the slavery convention was signed. This was designed to combat slavery in the area of the Red Sea. And then finally, 1948, slavery was declared illegal worldwide. So there are no more slaves.
No more. For sure. For sure. To my story. The other day, I went to see a doctor.
And when I arrived quite early in the morning, the young clerk who looked unhealthy and a little bit overweight and a little bit angry made my life absolutely miserable. As I was trying to see this doctor, she treated me extremely poorly, viciously, I guess you could say. Right? And I asked myself, why would a person treat another person like this? And the answer, of course, is that that poor woman considers herself not a slave, but something even more pernicious, a wage slave.
In other words, she’s doing a job that she absolutely hates. For what? For money. Now, easy to laugh at this, isn’t it? Because all of us have had points in our lives that we’ve actually needed money and we have to sell our time for money.
But I think everyone knows that they don’t have to keep that job. And if they don’t keep the job, perhaps they will go hungry, perhaps they won’t have any money, etcetera, etcetera, but they do not absolutely legally have to keep that job. We’re not chattel owned by the employer. We are free, which means I don’t have to stay in my misery. I can leave, but of course, much much easier said than done.
So what do I need? Well, I need a plan, don’t I? I need a plan and maybe I don’t have, for instance, enough education. Okay? That means that I have to go to night school and up my educational game, so to speak.
I need more training. Perhaps I’m not sophisticated. Now with the Internet and all the knowledge in the world accessible before us. There is no excuse for this at all. I can go to the Internet and learn how to become more sophisticated.
Recently, I watched an interesting speech by a woman obviously speaking with an upper class English accent. But at the very beginning, she was from the working class coal miners in Wales and had a horrible accent. And then she went to Oxford. And in Oxford, her teacher took her aside and said, look, you’re never going to advance socially unless you improve your accent, which she did. She went and was trained and developed an upper class accent.
Now this only matters, of course, in Britain because if you speak English like I do, American English or international English or Canadian English or French English or Chinese English, Nobody cares. They care about your personal brand, of course, your personal branding. And here we come back to that idea of sophistication. So after I gain some sophistication and then I improve my education, my training, then I can act. And to do this, I must be a little bit brave.
And of course, as Osho tells us, there are no heroes, There are no cowards. There is only action. So therefore, coming back to that young woman who was so irritated and grouchy early in the morning, there is no excuse for this. No excuse at all. It’s up to her.
Therefore, we can have in reality no pity for her. None. Zero. Zip. Because she is deciding to stay in that position herself.
She’s placed herself in that reality. And, of course, I’m sure if you confronted her with these details, with this reality, she would say that’s not true. I can’t change my job. I have two children. My husband doesn’t make enough money.
We have debts, blah blah blah. The story just goes on and on and on. But of course, you can because none of us in the modern world has to be a wage slave. But most assuredly, it’s up to me. And like I said earlier, far easier said than done, but it can be done.
And it’s been done by many thousands of people. The rich, the successful, they acted, and they suffered along the way, didn’t they? Of course. But still they did act. So in the end, it’s my life.
I can be as free or as enslaved as I want to be because I’m not owned by anyone anymore. I’m just owned by myself. And in many ways, that’s a bigger curse than to be a physical slave, isn’t it? Because now you must look after your own reality, your own person. But I do think many people are intellectually lazy, and they would rather be victims than be heroes.
But it’s my choice. Sadly, it is my choice. So the next time you meet a person like this, I think extend some kindness to make them think that the world isn’t this terrible. So after I eventually saw the doctor, which was an amazing hassle to find him. But after I saw the doctor, I came back downstairs, and I bought a small cake.
And I went to the young woman, and I gave her the cake. And she was stunned, and she refused to take the cake, but, of course, I just left it and walked away. You know? Because I realized that it was up to me to extend a little bit of kindness to another human being. Right?
So you know what they say. You know what they say. We do not have to be wage slaves, but it is up to me and that requires critical thinking. Because critical thinking is great, truly great. You take care. God bless. Bye bye.