I haven’t posted in a long time. I wanted to. But I couldn’t find the motivation.

Then the other night I lay in bed and remembered something I wrote a few years ago. When I was still working. I want to share it here.

And it’s relevant. It’s not a travel post, but people always ask me why I stopped working as a lawyer. I find it hard to explain. But I think this shows why.

It’s unedited, as I originally wrote it.

The Lift

The lift ride takes 60 seconds.

You ride the lift ten times per day.

Five times per week.

Forty-nine weeks per year.

That comes to forty hours per year spent riding in lifts.

Up.

Down.

Up.

Down.

Up.

Down.

This morning’s lift takes off.

The man next to you looks tired. He’s wearing a tailored suit. Bags under his eyes. Egyptian cotton shirt. Grey hair. Rolex watch. Blotchy skin.

He looks at his phone. 8.28 AM. The start of another day.

You realise that you have seen this man before. He might even work at your firm. You have never spoken to him. The same goes for the rest of the souls crowded into the elevator. Slowly moving towards their destination.

Everyone else is staring at their phones. Or at their shoes. Even at the ground.

It is green marble. Cost $5,000 per square metre. Imported from Italy.

The marble floor in this elevator is worth more than your entire year’s salary.  But your pay increases next year. You will be able to buy an extra two square metres of marble. Or a new car. Perhaps save ten families from poverty. Protect two endangered species. Free a child slave.

But you wouldn’t. You won’t even free yourself.

You choose to stay in the elevator.

It keeps going up.

The only thing that changes is that you are getting older.

And closer.

To your destination.

Your final destination.

~