Twenty-four-hour workday

There is a heated debate on Linkedin if young people need to work 18-hour day or not. I will give some edge cases to bring clarity to this debate and then end my article with some concluding thoughts.

Case One: In 1953 Sir Edmund Hillary and his guide (employee) Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were the first humans to climb peak of Sagarmatha. Clearly Norgay was the more skilled one and hence he was the guide. However, without his employer, the Ninth British Expedition to Everest, and the resources provided by the Expedition, he could not have, most likely, carved his name in the history books.

Now, consider the journey from base camp to the top of Sagarmatha. It’s not a 9 to 5 duty. In that journey, eating is a challenge, sleeping is challenge, walking is a challenge, emptying one’s bowels is excruciatingly painful.??When one has audacious goals, even sleeping and bowl movement is work!!!! Think about it.

Case Two: Case of the stray dogs in typical Indian colony. Their work is defined as showing up when some animal lover throws food at them and being nice to their benefactor. For them merely showing up and being nice is defined as work.

Case Three: Think of the epic battle of Pavan Khind in Maratha history. The job that Baji Prabhu Deshpande took upon himself was to stay alive and stop the invading Abyssinian army till he gets signal that his King, Shivaji, has reached safely at his planned hideout. He defined his job as not dying till he gets the signal !!!

So, one can define one’s jobs and one’s purpose of life the way one deems right. We are masters of our destiny. The way you define your job, even sleeping can become a task, or just being showing up can become main job description or not dying before hearing a signal can become a KRA.?

Once one makes that meta choice, the debate around 8-hours of sleep, or 9 to 5 job or two days of weekends becomes meaningless.?

Finally, it is important to understand there is more to job than the money and promotion, and nowadays ESOPs that you get back. It’s the enrichment of your own being. In Sanskrit, the long-term engagement is called Tapasya, literally the one which comes from energy. In Tapasya, you direct your energy towards certain things for long time and in return the universe directs its energy back to you, giving you additional physical, intellectual and mental facilities (Gita 17:14, 17:15, 17:16).??In modern pop culture, Tapasya is called the 10,000-hour rule as popularized by Malcom Gladwell in his book Outlier.?