Tim Ferriss Revisited
May 19, 2008
Last year I wrote a post titled, “Timothy Ferriss: Ruining Lives Four Hours at a Time!” In the post I explained how a friend of mine took Timothy’s book, The Four-Hour Work Week (TFHWW) seriously and began ruining his relationships. The comments have been humorous to say the least, including:
“Ferris strikes me as a snake-oil salesmen”
“He has no concept of ethics and seems to cheat his way through life”
“To the blogger, I suggest you “get a life” and then give us your comments….”
“Have you ever stopped to consider that the reason he is doing this is to avoid people like yourself?”
“FHWW is like kryptonite to a middle manager (or this guy).
The comments keep coming in even though the post is almost a year old. The most interesting thing I would like you to consider is this comment:
“I do not believe for one minute that TFHWW could be utlized by everyone in Ferris’ company… Eventually, somebody is going to have to put in a full day of work stuffing boxes with snake oil to ship off to the QVC crowd.”
The point is well taken. If everyone decided to read Timothy’s book and actually follow the TFHWW model who would do the work? Who would man the oil refineries? Who would make the clothes? Who would do my taxes? Who would fix my network? Who would build my website? Is it possible for SOME people to live the FHWW life? Sure, obviously lots of people do it. But, is it a noble life? Is it the life an American should aspire to?
I think The Four Hour Work Week is, at its core, a perfect example of what is wrong with America today. Our founders were the hardest working people of their time. They toiled in service to their fellow man to create a free country. The greatest generation fought and died for Europe’s freedom in the forties and came back to America and built a country that made things. What happened? Today we are a country of people who outsource almost everything. We don’t mow our lawns, we don’t clean our homes, we don’t cook our meals, we don’t drill for oil, we won’t build oil refineries, we simply don’t do much anymore. More and more people we interview (i.e. folks in their 20’s) have little or no experience with work. They have been given everything and assume this is just the way it is. Hand them Timothy Ferriss’ book and they feel right at home. Take for example how Tim uses a team in India to ‘manage his love life, arranging more than 30 dates with 30 different women in 2 days. As Tim Warren points out, “Doesn’t that seem like an arrogant and grimly functional approach to dating?” Really? Are we really to busy to screen and schedule dates? Come on.
We as American’s need to take a long hard look at ourselves and figure out why we were put here on earth. Why were we given all of these advantages? Luke 12:48 commands, “To whom much is given, much is expected.” Just as ‘hard work’ is a virtue, laziness is one of the seven deadly sins. Maybe you can get everyone else to do you work (and play), but just maybe you were put on this earth for a higher purpose. Maybe the act of hard work is an end to itself? I am not sure why, but something about Timothy’s ideas about work scare me.
