The Plant’s Job
job
[ job ]
noun
a piece of work, especially a specific task done as part of the routine of one’s occupation or for an agreed price:
I’m writing this during the strange times of the coronavirus pandemic. I have decided to turn the lockdown into an opportunity to write more. I can do part of my job from home (not all), and my current contract is soon finishing, which is ‘great’ timing to put in some writing hours and discuss jobs.
What could I learn from the plants that would help me in the future?
Jobs are defining us, and the paycheck determines our lifestyles.
When we meet somebody new, ‘what do you do?’ is one of the first questions we ask. We think more or less highly of different type of jobs, so we create some judgmental thoughts about one person, just by learning about their workplace.
So let’s explore why is the occupation crucial in our relationships? And what is the meaning of our jobs?
Commonly, we are born and taken care of by the parents, who have jobs. During the first part of our life, we don’t have any responsibilities, the focus is on education. It starts with general knowledge from elementary, secondary schools, to high schools when kids are trying to find what they would like to do for the rest of their lives. Some don’t go through the whole process, but for this argument, I will talk about the vast majority.
Many then go to colleges, where the education streamlines to more essential knowledge useful for a specific job. It doesn’t always end up as the long life occupation, but that’s how the educational system is organised in the majority of countries.
After the education period, you are basically starting your career, or in other words, around 40–50 years of doing routine activities for an employer in exchange for money. I’m not going to talk about other ways of spending this time as an entrepreneur or a volunteer, or different means of using this chunk of your time; in the end, is still doing some work of some sorts in exchange for something.
Every month you get reimbursed with money that is calculated by your position in the company, relative to the market. Everybody aims to get as higher as possible salary to manage their lifestyle choices.
The mathematics of the time you spend working
I won’t go into a very detailed analysis of how much time you spend working versus your free time. Still, it’s worth seeing what does an average career look like.
The norm is starting to work in the early 20s’ until the late 60s’. With a classical 8 hours/ day work, 5 days a week for an adult hopefully living until the late 80s’ means that around 50% of your life and a staggering 66% of your adult life is spent on your career. There is also free time after the work hours or weekends, but you never really feel you do not have a job, do you? So we consider this time also included in the career phase.
With such a big part of your life dedicated to working, it’s no wonder many people have a lot of pressure in choosing the right place to work. A probable side effect is that most are not excited for another day in the office.
I used to do this simple exercise with my friends to check who is really enjoying their job and who would pass it in an instant if they would not be locked in by the income:
If you would earn the same salary every month, but you didn’t have to go to work, would you still do it?
It might seem like an unfair question. After all, who would not change the occupation for free time while having the same benefits? Well, I tell you who. Somebody who is really enjoying going to work and cannot wait for another day at the office. Somebody that enjoys doing their work chores and still enjoy the spare time. But these cases are rare.
The fact is that the people are using a large part of their life for a work that they don’t like, just for financial security. It’s somewhat depressing, somewhat understandable and somewhat intriguing.
Essential jobs — a tribute to the heroes on the front line against COVID-19
Before the global pandemic of the coronavirus, people could argue which jobs are more important than others. Still, the arguments came from somewhat subjective judgement. The very fast spreading of the virus resulted in the governments generating stricter regulation up to a total lockdown for stopping the proliferation. These measures will come at tremendous economic costs because businesses shut off, and people had to adapt and work from home. Not all jobs are possible to be done remotely, rendering some of the occupations as essential for society.
This crisis highlighted the heroes that have to go to work in dangerous circumstances, being exposed to infection. In contrast, we, the rest of the people, have just one job. To stay at home!
The heroes fighting this pandemic are the healthcare workers, the workers in the food value chain from production to retailing, the people working in pharmacies, delivery, energy supply facilities, police, firefighters, traffic control, the waste management workers and so on. To all these people, a BIG thank you!
Before the crisis, you might think that working in a supermarket is not such an outstanding job compared with the CEO of a tech start-up. Still, the crisis has shined a light on what is truly essential and who is representing the foundation of society.
IKIGAI of humans and plants
IKIGAI is a Japanese concept of finding one’s true meaning. It can be daunting and may create anxiety for some people. Still, the goal is to understand the complexity of one’s work relative to the skills and passions.
I’m a true believer that there is no preordained destiny or hidden meaning in us that we somehow need to discover. If I look back to my life, my current passions are not coming out of some hidden inner truth, but rather by finding ways to learn how to love a subject. Being open and curious about things that gradually excited me self-made them into my current passions.
This being said, I like the IKIGAI diagram to structure and have an overview of the core of a job. Now even matching two circles at a time is a win in my book and having three rings paired is a definite accomplishment. I think it is a good exercise for everyone to practice and check not just how bad is the score on the IKIGAI scale, but which part they should improve.
The trick is that the real win is when your current situation matches with the circles you value the most. For example, you are not so much interested in making a lot of money, but you really want to enjoy what you do. You won’t care for a lower salary if you can enjoy every moment of your day. If you wish to support a more expensive lifestyle but don’t really care for what the world needs, you have to work on matching the things you are good with the items you are paid for. And so on. Each of us should define first the things we value the most and then act upon the diagram.
I think that if you do this exercise, you have to be very sincere with yourself. Don’t try to push in arguments that your work should change the world. Be honest and also be open to change. You might want today to earn the most so you can buy a beautiful house with a big garden but once this level is achieved you might change in working for something that has more relevance for the world.
Now, in the battle against COVID-19, there are people on the front line who found their IKIGAI. And we should all be thankful for that.
Now, in the battle against COVID-19, there are people on the front line who found their IKIGAI. And we should all be thankful for that.
At the beginning of my career, I was mostly interested in ‘what the world needs’ (or so I made myself beliving) and less on earning. At the same time, the things I love to do mattered more. Lately, maybe a bit cynically, I became more interested in finding what I really love to do, to finally be paid for (perhaps this writing I’m so inconsistent about). I feel like I am far from IKIGAI, but I am willing to always question my status quo and improve.
The job of the plants
I know I said in many posts that at one point I will speak about the money through the plants’ lenses. It’s challenging to discuss plants’ jobs without a paycheck. So it would be accessible to dismay even the mere thoughts of plants having jobs as they can not nor would want the banknotes we all race for. But as we have seen in the case of the current crisis, there are essential jobs to keep the society moving, and the same could be the case for the plants’ organisation.
Going back to how the entire human life is spread into education — adulthood with career and retirement, let’s see how this model applies to the plants. The vegetative world is way more diverse than a single species of Homo sapiens sapiens. The life of plants can differ in such significant ways that would be difficult to quantify. But we can simply say that the plant is ‘born’ from a seed. Then it has vegetative growth in which it develops the main organs and grows, reaching a phase of flowering. After which it produced fruits and seeds and dies; either to be reborn the next season or never.
The education for plants is significantly different as they don’t need peers to teach them about their past, their way of being, and how to do calculus. If you take a seed of basil and place it in an empty room, in a spot near the window, having all requirements met, it will still grow and develop normally. Nobody told the new plant what to do, and there were no other plants around to take a hint from. The plants are wired in this sequence of life by their genetic information, so they don’t require a tutor. Same way as if a child will grow alone, having the survival needs met, would not need to learn how to breathe or eat.
The plants operate better in an ecosystem where diversity primes. But still a single plant in a pot in an empty room would do its best to perform at its jobs.
So what are the jobs a plant will take on and what’s the currency of the salary earned?
The plants are having a multitude of essential jobs, and no other unessential occupation is appealing for a plant. Some of the work they do is providing shelter for several different organisms from fungi to larger animals. They also provide food for a large number of organisms being an essential food production and distributor for its consumers and never procrastinates at the job. The plants are also producing oxygen taking in carbon dioxide. Therefore it provides the breathable air for all the animals on the Planet.
The plants are also creating ecosystems where life grows and thrives. These ecosystem services and the relation with other organisms are making life on Earth possible. Of course, there is competition, and the plants are adapted to the threats of the environment. Still, their job description is service to everybody in their proximity to sustain their own lives.
The plants are as the healthcare workers reacting to predators from chemical signalling to producing secondary metabolites to fight the invaders. Or cooperating with other organisms in a mutualistic way. They are also helping the waste management extracting nutrients from the decomposed organic matter and latter contributing back by laying off the leaves before the winter. The plants are self-sufficient in food by taking nutrients and water from the soil and producing energy from the sun. They are very efficient in this process and never take in excess or try to get fast gains against the long term wins. They develop self-defence mechanisms against natural pathogens.
I think it is safe to say that we can find all the essential jobs from our human society mirrored in a way to the plants.
I have been arguing about how people choose jobs to sustain a particular way of life. They receive a monthly paycheck that they use for securing the primary means of survival, food, shelter and family needs and also for improving their lifestyle. The exchange rate of the work hours is the money that they can use to buy goods and services.
The plants do not get employed. They do not have a boss nor targets to reach. They work from day one in creating a world in which they can thrive, and their work creates rewards in material exchange. The animals that are finding food in the plants’ products are giving back fertiliser in the form of waste, for example. There is a multi-loop value chain going on in the plants’ work activities. That is why their job is always essential, and the work schedule is 24h, 7/7 days.
An ongoing work without a holiday? That seems like hell if we want to imagine people being engaged in such an immense workload. But the plants are also having a ‘holiday’ and taking care of the family and other such activities we consider not working, at the same time. For the plants, there is no difference in the importance of creating food for the animals, producing oxygen or creating offspring through the seeds. There are all full-time, equally important jobs.
That’s an essential shift in our thinking. To look at the spare time as working time in that everything you do, matters for your life and others’. If you decide to binge-watch while eating crap food you are doing a disservice to you and to the society. You are missing on time you could have done better and fuelling unhealthy businesses. If you decide to exercise, read a good book or meditate, you are improving your health, resulting in more impact in your work. Thus benefiting for all of society and the world.
The plants reached IKIGAI
Going back to the Japanese concept of IKIGAI, let’s explore the diagram looking through the plants’ lenses. Taking some jobs as previously described, like producing food and oxygen, we can quickly observe that the plants reached IKIGAI. They are very good at this, and as said before, they adapted through evolution to their environment and react to all the stimuli they receive to increase efficiency in their activities. They also get paid for it. If they give their work as services to nature, it responds back.
Just think of the example with the animals fertilising the plants. Another would be of the cooperation with predatory insects that eat the ones that attack the plants. There is a balance of give and take for the greater good. And this is another check on the diagram. Their jobs are essential for the Planet and for the world. There is no denial of that. Just think of the oxygen they produce to sustain the life on Earth. Finally, they love what they do. If you would ask plants the same question I use to test my friends if they love their job, it will be something like this:
If you got everything that you earn from nature and at the same time, you would not have to do any of your tasks, would you still do it? The answer is yes, and agriculture is the proof.
In modern agriculture practices, we are using fertiliser, pesticides and other methods to push the production to the maximum. Some systems are more questionable than others, but the plants are still objectively reacting to the stimuli they receive. They don’t stop to produce oxygen even if we cultivate them just for the food. They always want to offer shelter and food to other organisms. They always react to the adaptation obtained in the millions of years of evolution. A genetic behaviour a very short-lived human can not disturb.
Why should I work more like a plant?
In conclusion, there are some valuable lessons to learn from the plant’s work ethic. Firstly, you need to be humble and honest to observe where you sit in the IKIGAI diagram and not force its development. The plants reached the IKIGAI through millions of years of evolution. We are still young and need to learn a lot to have more happy, efficient and useful jobs. An important lesson, especially in these hard times, it is that the service to others is as important to the ones who got served as to the ones that help.
The plants know this and are not shy in giving everything for the ecosystem to thrive and so getting part of the abundance they create. We should also pay and praise the ones that are keeping the society moving forward, the heroes fighting in the dark times, the bright lights for a better future.
We should not be greedy and think selfish because that will lead to the suffering of others that will undoubtedly affect us. The more generous and humble we are the happier and fulfilled we will live. I think this is the main lesson we can learn from plants and maybe one day we will see how the Earth flourishes with every day and not slowly die with more human activity.
In the moment of crisis, we can ask ourselves how to redeem ourselves and create a more resilient and sustainable future by helping others to help ourselves.
Phytosophy is an anthology of thought experiments that explore the intrinsic human condition through the lenses of the plants.Are plants courageous, lazy, or humble? Do they procrastinate, cheat or sacrifice? What lessons can we learn from the nature in order to make our lives more meaningful?
