Let go of the shame for not wanting to work

You are not broken. You are not Lazy. You are magic.

Since sharing my article, I don’t want a job, I have been incredibly emotional and activated by the unprecedented response. I’ve been sharing my work online for a decade. I’ve had work go viral but I’ve never had so many messages, so many people being moved by a piece of work.

If I could have chosen something I had written to have this sort of impact: it would have been that essay. How fucking beautiful is that.

It turns out it wasn’t just me. A lot of people, a lot of artists, don’t want to spend our days, our lives, going to a job that doesn’t give us meaning and doing work that robs us of our energy. We don’t want to spend hours trawling through Indeed, wondering which bullshit job will cause the least amount of pain to our psyche. We don’t want to spend 90,000 hours of our lives doing work that steals us away from our art, creativity, play, purpose. Or be in situation where, even when we are not working, as Bob Black, author of the foundational essay of the anti-work movement, says: “ (our) free time is mostly devoted to getting ready for work, going to work, returning from work, and recovering from work”. We want more.

To know I am not alone is life changing.

Artists have an appetite for life that labour cannot satiate.

Most of the thousands of comments on the essay (and instagram + youtube) were from artists. They were artists saying: I want more. I want a life I love. I want art. I want energy. It was so beautiful and so heartbreaking.

Artists, we are the questioners, the rebels, the revolutionaries. We are the ones who dare say, but why do I have to do it this way? Why do we accept these conditions? Why can’t I have more? Why are you all good with the 9-5, grey office box? Wouldn’t you rather be playing with watercolours? Perhaps we only write these thoughts in our journal, or think them late at night when the world is finally silent. But we think these thoughts. The artist demands a life that sparkles.

It is why I love us.

It is why the world tries to keep us quiet and compliant.

I believe artists and creators have an incredibly important job in deconstructing their own narratives about work, and then playing a part in allowing others to do the same.

WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT

I intend to write multiple essays about this topic. I want to write more about why artists will be at the forefront of the work revolution. I want to talk about more systemic solutions and personal solutions. I want to talk about AI. I want to talk to the artists who wants to make a living with their creations. I want to explain to you why I believe selling your art is anti-capitalist. I want to look at this topic from every angle, and work towards a world where we get to actually LIVE our life, make our art, and not be constantly trying to recover from employment induced exhaustion.

But before we have those conversations, I want to talk about the shame.

I want to talk about why none of us have said this shit out loud before. Why it took me ten years to write about this properly, (and I share everything on the internet, it’s literarily insufferable!). I want to explain why this topic has become so unbelievably taboo. I want to talk about how many of us hate ourselves because we don’t want to do what we are told to do.

Because if we can’t talk about the shame around this topic then we can’t have conversations about how we create lives that sparkle. Shame keeps us quiet and silent.

Why is it taboo to say you don’t want a job?

We live in a world where all you have to do is show up to your job and society says you’ve served your purpose.

Many sins are excusable if you also have a good work ethic. Ethic being the operative word. Ethical. Moral. If one works one is moral. The harder one works, the more moral one is. This is the story of our culture. The hard working american. The veneration of employment. A human kept occupied by labour is a good person.

To say you don’t want to have a job is plain and simple, a defect in your character. Something is wrong with you.

We internalise this bullshit. Even when we are almost fucking certain that it doesn’t make sense, and it can’t be right, we internalise it.

I internalised it. I hated myself. I thought I was so disgusting for not wanting to work like everyone else worked.

In order for you, for the world, to get to spend their days doing shit that matters, and that lights them up - we must release the shame. Today, I want to write words that allow you to realise that you are a fucking good person, powerful, important, needed, incredible - even though you don’t want a job.

Why has Work has been fetishised

There are many reasons why we worship work.

We can look at Calvinism, and the protestant work ethic.

Or the foundational myth of all judeo-christian religion: Adam and eve were punished with labour for original sin, and so must we atone for our faults by working.

We can and should look at Industrialist Capitalism, where your value is determined by what you produce, which serves economic systems that need compliant and productive workers.

We can explore how if work is inherently virtuous, then the wealthy are "deserving" because they supposedly worked harder, and the poor are lazy or immoral.

We might dip into the discussion of control. Work structures teach us hierarchies and authority systems, which maintain order in our capitalist system. If work is moral, the heirarchy is moral, and we shouldn’t challenge the authority.

If we wanted to go really out there, we could say that people who don’t work might make art, and art is rebellious and challenging to social norms.

For now, though, I just need you to know that having a job is not a moral requirement. Having a job doesn’t make you a good person. There are reasons why work has been deified in our culture and a huge amount of those reasons are to keep you fucking quiet, and compliant.

Let me take away your shame

You are not lazy

As I have now found out, if you say you dont want a “real job” out loud, people will call you lazy. I was used to it though, because I said that shit to myself everyday for a decade.

I agree with Devon Price: laziness does not actually exist. It seems instead to be some sort of insult we hurl at those who dare to enjoy their lives. But I shall use the word in this section for clarity.

Listen to me, not wanting a life of drudgery doesn’t make you lazy. Not wanting to be a cog in a machine does not make you lazy. Not having the motivation to do work that seems pointless, is not lazy.

You have a thirst for life. You want to do things that light you up. You want rest and play and connect. You are not lazy, you are asking for a life that you love. You are not lazy, you have an intolerance for a life of drudgery. You are not lazy, you just don’t want to do work that sucks.

You are not a privileged little shit

This one got thrown at me a lot. And I am glad it did, because I got to do some big thinking about it. I am privileged. I am middle class and white and educated. It is not an abuse of my privilege to demand a life with meaning and purpose. I demand it for everyone.

A lot of the guilt we have for wanting MORE, is this horror that, if I want more, why don’t they get more? Am I allowed to ask for a life that sparkles, when other people’s life doesn’t sparkle?

In the aftermath of my original essay I was repeatedly accused of “outsourcing drudgery”. A lovely man, who I suspect fucking LOVES his life, said this:

Funny, isn’t it? The platform you use, the hardware, the internet—it's all maintained by thousands of people. Tens of thousands, actually. The dollars you make online, providing your little "entertainment value," come from people doing shit jobs and people who suffer. Enjoy the oil of the machine—the suffering, the sweat of others—all so you can feel magical. Get a grip.¹

It’s an unpleasant read (he’s a tool). But I wanted to put it here, so I could refute it and refute the voice in your head that may have similar ideas.

You will not, I will not, labour in meaningless ways, hate our lives, JUST BECAUSE other people have jobs. You will not, I will not, take shit, because other people have to take shit. Do not martyr yourself.

This comment is classic what-about-ism. Don’t look at that issue, there’s another issue over here. Don’t ask for more because we aren’t ready for it yet as a society.

We need to write one more line of code, build one more server farm, clean one more toilet, THEN we can ask for more. Until then, shut up.

We are heading into a job revolution with AI, we already have a gluttony of bullshit jobs that are totally unnecessary and dehumanising. We do not need to be working this much or this hard. We work this hard because our culture is obsessed with work, not because it is needed. I do not want to outsource my drudgery. I want to liberate us of drudgery. Most of this drudgery isn’t even needed…

Of course, I need to acknowledge that I have had privileges that have allowed me to step out of the system much more easily than other people are able to. I know my reality isn’t universal. My intention is that by calling out the structures that keep us tethered to meaningless, exhausting labor, we can move toward a world where everyone—regardless of their race, class, gender, or circumstances—has the freedom and support to prioritise art, play, purpose, and rest. This isn’t about asking for a better world for just a few; it’s about fighting for systemic and cultural changes that make these freedoms accessible to everyone. I demand a life that I love. I demand a meaningful way to spend my time. And in doing so, I fight for others to have the same.

You are not being a privileged little shit by saying you don’t want a job. You are demanding a better world for everyone, and saying that it’s possible. This is a dangerous idea. Expect clap back, you’re threatening the foundation people have built their identities on.

You are not being childlike

One of my biggest internal stories was that I was a failed adult. I couldn’t grow up. I couldn’t “just cop it” like everyone else. Listen. You have never been so grown up. You are an adult who refuses to accept bullshit. You are so fucking adult that you can see beyond what has been offered to us, and you are daring to ask for more. This conversation you are having with me is the most adult conversation in the world. You are revolutionary. Rebellious. Needed. Precious.

You are not delusional

Our world is changing fucking fast. A work revolution is coming. It isn’t simply theoretical to be thinking about this. It is imperative. How will we build our future? Imagining a world that works differently is not delusional. For most of human history, pre-industrialisation, we did not centre work in our lives. Medieval peasants worked around 150 days of the year and spent the rest of the year feasting and celebrating holidays. The Romans were similar. Hunter gatherers were thought to work even less. We are in a culture of work worship, but it is not how things must be or have always been.

For those of us who are striving for a life of art, where you get to make shit and be paid for it. THIS IS NOT DELUSIONAL. It can work! It can be beautiful. It can be magic. There are so many legitimate ways to make artistry work as a job. Artists are treated like we are trying to go to space when we say we want to make money from our art, but it is, more than ever, a valid and fucking Holy way to carve out a life that works for you.

Taking action or thinking about how we could make this shit better isn’t delusional it is fucking as real as it gets. We get to and we need to think outside the box. There are ways to live outside of the systems that prevail.

You are not broken

You are living in a broken world, and you have the heart of an artist. It means you see things for what they could be. And this whole ‘you’ve got to have a job’ thing, could be a whole lot better.

Thank you for noticing that, thank you for being brave enough to admit that to yourself, thank you for demanding more for yourself.

The more of us are out here asking for lives that sparkle, the more people will realise they CAN demand lives that sparkle. Even if it begins with just a little bit of glitter, here and there.

You are so loved

We are going to have more conversations soon about how we can take this fucking shit show and turn it into art, and movement, and reclaim our power but for now I just want you to know that you don’t need to feel shame or guilt about this anymore. You should feel like a rebel instead, a revolutionary, an artist, a torchbearer. Whatever you’ve got your eyes set on at the moment, whether that’s quitting, starting a knitting club, going pro, or if you simply know what you absolutely DON’T want to be doing - I back that. I believe in you. I believe in your sparkly life.

I have built my life around championing artists and poured all my wisdom into my book We Need Your Art, out on March 11 and available for pre-order in audio, e-book, and hardcover. The amazing poet Whitney Hanson had this to say about it: “With a voice of humor and compassion, Amie McNee speaks directly to the artist’s heart. This book doesn’t shy away from hard truths, revealing the often unspoken challenges artists face. We Need Your Art is both a comfort and a call to action.”

Pre-orders are the most important sales in the life cycle of a book and it would mean the world to me if you ordered it now!

Yours,

Amie.

1. absolute lol that he used tech bros as the example