It certainly does not make sense financially to work. If we were to graph the relationship between hard work and money we would see that the harder and more demanding the jobs, the less they pay. As effort decreases, success (as measured by money) increases. If people were remunerated based on the amount of hard work necessary to accomplish a job, physical laborers would be the richest people in society. Obviously they are not.

In our graph we could start with the following benchmark based on present day prices. If a person only used his or her muscles to generate electricity (and not be assisted by devices or inventions that were derived through any brain activity), they would earn $4.30 in a lifetime.

The conclusion is already self-evident: we must use our brains to work less and ideally to avoid work altogether. Otherwise we condemn ourselves to working and the more we must work the less we get paid - a double whammy.

My Big Breakthrough

Decades ago, some friends and I had visions of renovating a run-down space into a fashionable graphic arts design studio.

Unfortunately, there, resting on its side, in the middle of our soon-to-be-magnificent parquet floor was a grotesque black safe, approximately 6 feet long and three feet by three feet at its base. It was obvious that before we could even begin the refinishing project we had to move this ugly box of rusted steel out of the room.