How 9 to 5 is killing us slowly but in a humane way
Some say that burning the midnight oil would leave you stressed and sick. While overworking is becoming something like a trend lately it is not the ultimate cause of misery. Lack of purpose is.
We get so entangled with day-to-day tasks that we often lose focus on the things that truly matter. In 2020 the world has changed so dramatically and so fast that we are still struggling to adapt.
Greeted by this new environment that we call "the new normal" it was almost natural that we took most of our old habits on board. We celebrate the lack of work commute yet we remain commuters in our minds.
We shift between work and leisure in this new temple of the home office. We eat, we sleep, we do our work routine and dream on getting back to the gym. Then an email comes in at 10pm. Would you bother to open it? That's your time off after all.
Being able to manage change and adapt would be the superpower of this new age. The sooner we realize that work and life are no longer separate entities the better we would be in dealing with the world we are all part of today.
Friedrich Nietzsche once said:
Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.
But what does it mean to have a day for yourself? Instinctively we understand that as time off or time away from work related tasks or duties. Thus, our understanding of work is one of a burden or something we must endure.
That's probably why we keep glorifying Friday as the best day of the work week while we loathe Mondays. It is all in the mind really. Working 9 to 5 is a poison that brings comfort to a dying soul. It is even more so in the contemporary world of remote business.
Instead of machines with a switch why not consider ourselves multilayered individuals who have many different roles, interests and passions. We are full-time sons and daughters, spouses and friends yet we limit the exposure to work as if it is something that would kill us.
Let's imagine a world where we are completely free to pursue our true potential and leave all stereotypes behind. Today is all we have so let's make it count. We are not born with an on/off kind of minds. We are born to be explorers, inventors and dreamers.
Product Owner at Wacom
3 年But how exactly changing your 9 to 5 work routine to something else is going to improve your life while working at home? We have kind of on/off minds but we need context to trigger it. That's why we go to the office we know that's the place where the majority of work is done and once you leave the office you know that's your time now (yeah in some cases it's not exactly like that but still). Your mind can rest because you've changed the context. Same with workouts at home... of course you can do a pretty good workout at home but it's just not working. Go to the gym and your mind is like "Dude you are here to killing it, today you rock... look at that guy performing a deadlift with 80 kilos, you will be that guy after two months!". Don't get me wrong I a strong supporter of the home office when you need but working from home permanently... I think that's going to kill our minds.