Personal Motivation Through Austrian Economics
by Todd Steinberg After spending time studying the basics of Austrian economics, I would often help friends out in a fix by telling them to think of it in the way an Austrian would, and they’d thank me for the advice. So when my talented character designer and storyboard artist confessed to possibly sliding into a bout of depression brought on by artist’s block, I took it upon myself to write a letter unleashing everything I knew about Austrian economics to lift him out of his funk. Dear Matt, All six billion of us on this planet have equal access to the one finite commodity of infinite value – time. You can do whatever you want with your time and what we do with our time will determine our ultimate happiness or misery. Key to this is our ability to manage our time. If someone offered you permanent billionaire status, but in exchange you had to work from sun up to sundown with no weekends or vacations, and with only enough free time in a day to eat a meal and get four hours sleep, you'd turn it down, because no amount of money is worth all your time. However, if the same person offered you billionaire status for 10 hours of work a day, five days a week, you'd listen, because giving some of your time now for future gain is beneficial to our long-term happiness. Unless you are a slave, what you do with your time is a voluntary transaction that is done deliberately and with your prior consent. That is to say, we actually do have free will; our time is our property and what we decide to do with it is nobody's choice but our own. Inherent in our access to time as a commodity is choosing what we do with it. Like all great accomplishments, they are preceded by great actions, and great actions are preceded by plans. So by listing your goals in life, or for the next ten years, or even one year, you've just taken your first step towards using your time to create a better life for yourself. If you have no plans, then your actions have no deliberate long-term value. At that point, you are living only for the day and you can expect no change in your life as a result from the voluntary use of your time. I have my life's goals listed on my MySpace page, with the current goal's steps listed in my electronic to-do list. Some people have it in a diary, posted on a wall near their bed, etched on their skin as a tattoo, whatever. It doesn't matter how you make your goals, but actually having goals rather than not having them is what counts. Planned goals lead to relevant actions, which lead to completed goals. Completed goals are accomplishments and having many accomplished goals under your belt leads to a purposeful and fulfilling life. Happiness is relative: We don't have to make plans to enact world peace, feed the poor, save the rainforest, etc. in order to be truly happy. Each person assigns his own subjective value as to what makes him happy. For Mother Teresa, she would be despondent if she could not have devoted her life to serving the poor. Whereas if a Wall Street tycoon was forced to live the rest of his life comforting lepers in Calcutta, he would find himself miserable. So if someone comes to you and says, "we know what would make you happy..." they are probably wrong since you are the ultimate determiner of what makes you happy. Some people want a big house; others would rather have a small house so they can save the money to travel around the world. Some people enjoy using their hands to make a living; others would rather get a degree so they can work in an office. If devoting your life to collecting porcelain Hummel figurines brings you fulfillment and happiness, then so be it. You wouldn’t be "wasting your time" even if the rest of the world feels that Hummel figurines are ugly and not worth the ceramic they're crafted from. Your happiness is completely contingent on what you value, not your neighbor, not society; nobody has the power to determine your happiness. If producing art is what brings you sublime happiness, then that has more value than a life spent acquiring fleets of private jets and yachts. If someone came to me and said, "Todd, forget your TV show, here's a few million dollars... now go on and do something worthwhile." I'd reply, "Sir, thank your for your offer, but eventuating my show is completely necessary to my long-term happiness and sense of accomplishment. I am not out to become a millionaire as a result of the cartoon... my art and the ability to share that with millions of others is the goal, not to acquire material wealth. I would be a miserable millionaire if I could not produce my art and share my stories and life with others." Some people act but make no plans, some people plan but take no actions, but some people make plans and take action towards those plans. Those are the people we should strive to emulate. At the end of the day, your actions are a result of what you prefer to do. Here is a common lie: "I'd prefer to do X, but for now I have to do Y." Your actions are what your prefer to do. You can't say, "I want to go to school, so I can earn a degree, so I can become a corporate executive, so I can stop mopping floors," if for years you've never so much as filled out a single college application. At this point, your actions have determined that you prefer to mop floors than to take the steps necessary to get your career in corporate America. In other words, you've proven yourself to be full of it. Yesterday, you told me how you would often fall into a rut and it depresses you, which leads you into long stretches of nonproductivity. We all have a monkey on our back in one respect or another. Everyone conquers this differently, but I bet if you take it one day at time, it will be easier if for one day you falter. So in your case, try thinking of each day as a new day filled with a fresh 24 hours that you can use to apply yourself productively. In your mind, by deciding to make each day independent of the other, the non-accomplishments of one day won't bleed into the next day or the next week and so on. In conclusion, as you know, the creation of this show is very important to me. When I signed you up and paid you money, it was because I valued your services more than I valued the money and likewise you chose to accept the money because you valued that more than you what you could have alternatively done with your time. When I saw your initial sketches and storyboards, I realized that I had picked the right person, someone who had talent but was under-utilized. In other words, I had faith that you're right guy for the job. Now faith is the essence of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen. When you make a plan, you put faith into accomplishing it since you have no visible proof that you can actually make it happen. However, once you take actions to fulfill that plan, you are proving your faith, if you will. So I have faith that you will soon be able to masterfully balance work, family, and your leisure time so that you can adequately devote the time and energy to our project. You are doing fine now, and as we progress, we'll no doubt be putting more time into it. Surely, as we work together, our fruits will inspire us to create more, so I feel it will mentally become easier as we further realize the project. Ultimately, it's up to us making sound choices and decisions to allow us to cooperate more efficiently and effectively. Like I said before though, this is a day-by-day thing, and for every hour of work we put in, we can see the results. However, my biggest inspiration is knowing that this idea is our best chance to become successful artists in our own right and to springboard into other creative avenues. Many ignorant people believe that comics and cartoons are trivial at best or wasteful at worst, but you and I know the power of words and pictures and its ability to change the hearts of men. We are not out to please them, but to please our future fans and ourselves. Our art is beyond work, it's beyond "making a living," it's about making a little bit of yourself known in the world and perhaps changing it for the better in our own small way. Very Sincerely, March 7, 2008 Todd Steinberg [send him mail] works with his family at a wholesale teddy bear company in Dallas. In his spare time he is furiously working on his cartoon, "Don’t Tell My Wife I’m a Cult Leader," which he plans to unleash on the Internet and beyond in 2008. Copyright © 2008 LewRockwell.com |
