Job Security

In America, freedom means you can (mostly) do as you wish.

• You have the freedom to ask an employer for a job.
• You have the freedom to branch out on your own, do something you’ve always wanted to do, and ask people to pay for what you do.
• And you have the freedom to fall flat on you face.
• You then have the freedom to become homeless, suppress your sorrows with alcohol, damage your body and brain with chemicals, and die.

You have that freedom in America.

You also have the freedom to try something else.

• You can take the initiative to make something of your life.
• You can make yourself more valuable to others, to an employer, to the public at large.

What exactly? I don’t know. It depends on you. And it depends on the place and time.

In Phoenix Arizona in 2024, you can be a computer person. There are lots of jobs for software engineers, wafer fab technicians at Intel, a website designer working remotely via the Internet, …

Also in Phoenix Arizona in 2024, you could shoe horses, round up cattle, or run a General Mercantile in an isolated community. But there aren’t many of those jobs around. A hundred years ago, there were a lot more of those, but times change.

What you can profit from doing depends on both where and when you live. You may be able to do many things, but which one(s) will your place in time value? You’ll have to figure that out. (Don’t take the college counselor’s words as gospel. They’re paid to encourage you, but if they’re wrong, you’ll suffer, not them. [It’s your life, not theirs.])

I’ve been many things for pay: car-hop, newspaper boy, short order cook, TV/radio repairman, software programmer, manager, teacher, author, …

Job security isn’t something the government can, will, or should give you. What they do is temporary. It continues only as long as the administration has the power, will, and resources to do so. When that changes, you’ll be out on your ass no matter how good or bad you were.

Real job security comes when you re-make yourself into something the world values. And they have to value it by putting money in your hand. (No money = no value.)

Note that when they put money into your employer’s hand, your job security comes when they, in turn, put some of it into your palm. If they choose to keep more and more of it, then you have no job security.

There’s a reason we say someone is a self-made man or woman. It’s because they made themselves that way.

Job Security is your #1 job.

Make yourself of value.