Me No Labor

Metaphorical Narrative

There’s a man who dangles a ticket to the market. He says, “Be a good boy and I’ll take you.”
But being “good” means bending your back: cleaning his car, shining his shoes, carrying his bags.

The strange part? Every trip to this market ends the same way — you feel drained, heavy, used. The “reward” was just another layer of labor. The market is not freedom; it’s a disguised factory floor.

One day you stop mid-step. You drop the rag, drop the bags, drop the bargain. You realize: I never wanted to go to his market in the first place.

And with that, the leash snaps.

Core Insight

The ego trap here is a false exchange: obedience in return for exhaustion.
It makes you believe the only way forward is to serve — but the destination it offers is no prize, just more servitude.

The clean refusal — “Me no labor” — cuts through it. It denies the premise entirely. You don’t negotiate. You don’t polish. You don’t play. You stand as your own.

Saturday Experiment

• Notice any moment you feel the urge to prove yourself through small servitudes — tidying for someone else’s approval, over-preparing to avoid judgement, doing “good boy” rituals.
• Instead of obeying, quietly say to yourself: “Me no labor.”
• Walk away from the unnecessary task. Let the tension of disobedience hang in the air. Watch how your body feels when you don’t pay the toll.

Sunday Reflection

Write in third person:

• What does he see when he drops the rag and refuses the market trip?
• How does his body shift when he claims “Me no labor”?
• What markets in his life were never worth visiting in the first place?