Those Who Have Hope

Last week I received the news that I was shortlisted for an opportunity that could benefit our business financially. While I expected as much and was grateful for the opportunity, it was a bitter sweet revelation. The lives we currently live has been structured in a way that when someone wins, it has to be balanced out with someone losing. This increases my responsibility as my success must now equal the sacrifice of the business owners that did not receive this honour.

Contrary to popular belief, I wish to put my hope in the future and believe in a world where we can all achieve equality. Right here and now, a four-day workweek provides that opportunity. An extra day off gives everyone a fair shot at freedom of choice. At the very least, to take that day away from work and invest it in something that makes us happy. If your job already does that for you, congratulations, you are one of the rare few who actually enjoys going to work!

As one of our facilitators loves saying; “Collaboration is the new competition.” While I would very much love for this to be true, we are already starting off with a range of imbalances. In South Africa our upbringing varies greatly, we live in a country where there are cultural differences, language barriers and inequality prevails. For us to even get to the point of collaboration, a series of challenges must be overcome.

We require more time to do this and that is exactly what a reduced workweek offers.

While I enjoy winning as much as the next person, I feel it would have more value if more of us won. My hope is that we’ll eventually get to a point where we can all spend our limited time on things we truly enjoy. The things we enjoy must at the very least not harm others and in an ideal scenario, benefit those around us. From my side, I’ll keep hope alive and continue my efforts in getting a four-day workweek signed into law.

Tags

4 Day Week SA, INFJ, 4 Day Week, Future of Work, Work Time Reduction, Reduced Workweek Revolution, Wellbeing in the Workplace

David-John Wayne Bailey is an INFJ from Cape Town, a proud pioneer pilot participant of 4 Day Week SA and an advocate of a four-day week for everyone working in South Africa.