The Unbearable Heaviness Of Being A CEO – OpEd

No one knows what it’s like, to be the bad man, to be the sad man, behind blue eyes. No one knows what it’s like, to be hated, to be fated.” –– Behind Blue Eyes, The WHO (1971).

The trend these days, especially when the world is closing upon itself and becoming more interlinked via the internet, fiber optics, lightning fast air and ground travel, facsimiles and emails, text messages and cellular connectivity, is that the masses of the world are talking, from all walks of life, religions, races, cultures, countries, sexes, genders and age groups, to share their notes and commiserate about how much their lives suck and why it sucks – and invariably, the blame is always laid at the feet of the individual or entity that provides them money or capital or food or sustenance, so that they can live, pay bills, pay their rent or housing costs, provide themselves medical care, or take care of their children and families. 

If they had tried to start a business or became self-employed, and failed at this, then their anger is even more pronounced, sharp and unstable. 

With the advent of this now more closely connected human species on planet earth, there was first a general societal and world cultural movement to first, throw off any monarchies that stayed in existence as they were thought to be remnants of the oppressive but undeserved hereditary emperors and czars of the past, ruling over historical geographical entities and tracts of land scattered throughout most of the world, usually punctuated and synonymous with imposed order backed up by organized and institutionalized cruelty, violence, abuse (physical, mental, sexual, psychological, emotional), racism, sexism, discrimination, colonialism, exploitation, oppression, outright theft, over-taxation, fear, incarceration, or even worse, the “punishment” of death. 

These are obviously horrific memories, but still carried within the DNA and oral and literary record of the millennia-plus historically oppressed, and memories passed down from generation to generation, usually while the teller and listener shudder with spine and nerve tingling anxiety and physical revulsion, “never to be repeated again,” they always reiterate. 

So the world’s collective post-traumatic stress disorder world has quickly become a “workers of the world unite” paradise, wherein even on Tik Tok and other social media, young Generation Z (children) make videos and tout the benefits of such destructive and company destroying/sabotaging acts as “ghosting, “quiet quitting,” “zero notice,” or other such methods of sociopathically, irresponsibly simply walking out of a job or business, without any remorse or concern for their customers, clients, colleagues, vendors, contractors, and most certainly, their BOSS. 

Because that BOSS is a bad word, a bad person, as we are all trained to believe and think, as they are the inheritors of the mantle of the cruel, blood thirsty, arbitrary, and capricious “emperors” of the past, who according to them, deserve nothing but mass murder such as the one that was inflicted and imposed on the Czar and Czarina of Russia and his children when the Communists/Leninists took over the Russian Empire in the October Revolution of 1917. 

Of course, this is a sick, twisted, counterproductive, and self-boomeranging act because ultimately, if you kill the proverbial “golden goose” that provides food, housing, medical care, nourishment, security, and money, then you are literally killing yourself and your family. 

So the world is now at the precipice, in a transition moment, where we are struggling to grapple with, and find balance by and between the CEOs and Business Owners of the world, and their far greater in number Workers of the World, so that both sides can be happy and well adjusted, as both sides need each other as much as possible. 

This therefore will necessarily involve some new rules and regulations that also favor CEOs, Business Owners, and Bosses, because for the past 75 years (and possibly 100 plus years since the Russian Communist Revolution), things have gone really badly for business owners and their rights.

Not every CEO or business owner makes millions or billions per year, in fact, statistics show that the vast majority of business owners and CEOs of companies sometimes make even less money per year than their own prized employees, only they are forced to constantly deal with the Communist-inspired legacies of CEO whippings and regulation, such as severe and constant attacks from local and federal departments of taxation, labor departments, ethics departments, different political parties and ideologues, political corruption, favored competition due to corruption, online internet slander and defamation, sabotage from others, frivolous investigations from too many regulatory agencies/bodies, inflation, currency and monetary manipulation from the Federal Reserve, employee illness (or faked illness), paid maternity and family leave, massively skyrocketing “minimum wage” requirements imposed on their wallets, near immunity from liability when fraudster employees “hit and run” their companies with false claims of a “hostile work environment” or some other cover to justify their incompetence or evil acts, no sympathy from society or judges or legislatures, and other such slings and arrows of outrageous fortune being hurled at them, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days per year, rain or shine, while their employees generally enjoy a 40 hour work week lying on a hammock drinking a mint julep on the weekends, with NONE of those attacks. 

It’s time to re-evaluate, and for CEOs and Business Owners to also stand up, assert their own rights, and demand a “correcting of the market” when it comes to their own rights and undue burdens placed upon them, not just because it is the right thing to do (see Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged) but also because the world, literally depends upon it. 

If there are no CEOs, no business owners, or they are tortured, regulated, scrutinized, and harassed out of existence, then there are no jobs, no taxes paid, no money for workers, and therefore no food, security, housing, medical care for employees (who enjoy those weekend mint juleps while lying in their hammocks) or their families and children. 

Government certainly cannot step into the breach to provide these things, as the last 100 years of communist and socialist failure, year after year, country after country, continent after continent, have proven this, beyond a reasonable doubt.

So instead of constantly creating national holidays for “Workers’ Rights,” or “Secretary Day,” or whatever, let’s also try and collectively demand a “CEO Day,” and for once in a few hundred years, give thanks and praise for those few, courageous, ingenious, hardworking, tough, resilient, creative, and generous souls who have devoted their lives to building the American (and global dream) that is their company/business, while finding the extra time, capital, and resources, to also take care of the majority of the people around them, society, and their employees (and in turn, their families and children).