Business 101

“Life is business”

I’ve been in school now for just under 2 months. I am learning so many incredible things, things that my BA never opened my eyes to. Maybe I wasn’t interested in keeping my ears open back then. Maybe I wasn’t wise enough to really pick up on academic learning the way I am now. But none the less, this academic experience is somehow different than the one before.

Registered in the Bachelor of Business Administration program, and in a smorgasbord of 1st to 3rd year classes, I’ve been immediately exposed to many different kinds of business students. And, already in 2 months, I’ve heard a diverse range of studious college attendees utter that magical phrase: Life is business.

The guy going into PR.
That gal who doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life.
The guy in the extra-curricular business organization – a business lifer.
That pair of drinkers in the beer garden.
My sister.

I cannot express how stunning it is to hear this phrase. “Life is business.”

I don’t go fishing for this sage advice. It pops up everywhere. Like a mantra. Like the opening slogan of a class that I must have slept through. Wining and dining and talking as students will about where the hell they’re going and what the hell they’re doing, eventually someone pipes up “but really, you can’t go wrong with the BBA. Life is business” and everyone else smiles and nods. Like a professor has just made a point that we’ve all agreed on and understood for a very long time.

My sister laughs and makes a point to announce that her brother does not believe this. Then people look at me. You? You don’t believe this? Aren’t you in business?

Yes. I am in the business program.

It was in the paper I read today. The opinions section. Someone had mailed in that we should just deal with advertisements because that’s business. And life is business, they claimed.

No. It’s not.

Imagine that you are a painter. Now imagine you have a model. This model is complex, complicated, contorted and twisted. And she is captivatingly beautiful.

You feel you must know her; you are compelled to understand her every curve and contour. For better or worse, you pick up your brush. She will be yours. Ceaselessly, you work to create the perfect illustration, the perfect expression, of this model. You are in love with the model and the painting, discovering over the course of your creation things about her you had never seen before. Hidden, private parts of her that make you smile and seethe, and you paint it all. The nitty-gritty details. You expose her for what she is, putting all the nakedness you discover into the most incredible, honest light.

And when you are done, your creation is beautiful. Sure, there are a few details to add: a spot here to polish, a colour there to blur. But all in all, those are just details. You, however have created something worthy of representing what you see in front of you.

You are our collective sight. Your model is Life. Your painting is business.

Life isn’t an academic subject of study. It’s not a system of economic principles, entrepreneurial innovations, any more than it’s a causal connection between sperm and egg. Certainly, it is THE object of all studies, pursuits, and beliefs. But we would be incredibly remiss to mistake the painting for the model.

Many find my distinction trivial. Especially when I explain that business and an understanding of its principles is an incredibly effective tool to understand how we live. But since the moment I attended my first class, and even prior to that, in the moment I attended my first thoughts to the subject of business, that distinction has been paramount. That distinction is the very matter of free-will and slavery.

We are students. In our orientation we are told that we are the future. Our college makes a point to say how many of its alumni have gone on to be business leaders. We are a successful campus that churns out real movers and shakers.

How then, can we assent to such a ridiculous limitation that life is equivalent to this ready-made package of economic principles and management 5-step plans? How can we, as conscientious students, here to learn, understand, contribute and change the world, walk in nodding our heads at the idea that we are trapped in such a narrow perspective? Trapped to accept this painting as truth.

Seems that if we did, we’d be going to school for something we already claimed we knew. I’ve only experienced a small part of business school, and I certainly have much yet to experience in life. Seems brash – to be polite – to claim that this is all there is.

About as brash as claiming a single painting (no matter how many years of work were put into it) is the perfect representation of life.

Our dear, sweet, seductive model has far more to show us than this one meagre painting – thorough as it may be. She has all sorts of delicious adventures hidden within her form that a perspective of business simply cannot catch.

No, business is a tool, and with it we can change the fucking world as well as our own lives. But the efficacy and efficiency of that tool should never lull us into thinking that it is all there is. When we start thinking that, the tool wields us. I’ll not asset to that slavery.

My sister delights in the suggestion that friendship is a mutually beneficial business arrangement. She is not alone in this suggestion, nor is her logic particularly flawed. And, in another context, I’ll support the logic myself.

But, sharing a cigar with my friend of over 10 years, enjoying the evening and small talk about pretty girls, hopes and dreams, and an assortment of benign pleasures... has a quality to it that has very little to do with business.

And that is life.

- Z