I’ve heard this one about a few years ago. I thought that whoever said this would be a total loser for not having one. Now, it seems to make more sense than it did before. Indulge me for a few minutes as I try to (dis)prove this notion.
Work, in the sense of employment, is “a contract between two parties.”
In a commercial setting, the employer conceives of a productive activity, generally with the intention of creating profits, and the employee contributes labour to the enterprise, usually in return for payment of wages. Employment also exists in the public, non-profit and household sectors. To the extent that employment or the economic equivalent is not universal, unemployment exists.
So how do you go about working? You wake up in the morning (or night for those who work nights), then you grab something to eat, get yourself ready to go to work, then give eight hours of your day doing what your employer asks you to do. How many hours of the day does it actually take for you to work? It depends, but on average, roughly 10 hours (8 hours for your shift, an hour of lunch, and another hour to commute to and from the office). You’re then left with 14 hours to do what you need to do, like sleep, which takes about 8 hours on average. So basically, in a day, you only get 6 hours to do what you need to do for yourself. Maybe this is why someone thanked God it’s Friday, because they badly needed to do something for themselves that takes more than 6 hours, like drinking, partying, blogging, writing, gazing at the stars, mooning their neighbors, etc. And the wages you get from working lets you do all this. Or at least, some of it.
Now let’s take a look at life and living. It varies from person to person so I’ll just try to generalize everything here. Let us start with the bills. There’s rent, electricity, and water. I don’t pay rent, but those other bills aren’t getting any cheaper. Those are the necessity bills. Then there are the luxury bills like phone (landline and mobile), cable TV, and Internet. Then there are those “use-in-emergency-only” bills, like credit cards. Problem is, we misconstrue “emergency” with the words iPod, or Prada. Emergency would sometimes equate to Impulse. Those are just the monthly bills, without the groceries yet. Have a child? Add vaccination and doctor’s fees. Factor in rising fuel prices, not to mention the cost of maintaining a car, and you know it’s almost too much to take. The question then changes to “can you still afford to live?” I guess it’s time, at least for me, to take a look at my priorities and drop anything and everything I can’t afford.
Some people might get overwhelmed with all their obligations and bills that they forget what it is to live. I guess it’s all about the attitude that you yourself choose when being faced with problems. Attitude is essentially the key to having a great life.
Work should not be a break from life. It should be the other way around. From the time you were born, you are already working. You work your lungs to breathe. You work your muscles to move. You work your brain to answer questions. When you work to live, it’s not much fun now, is it? If you live to work, though, that’s no fun to anybody BUT you. AND you aren’t “really” working anymore. You work your lungs to breathe, but you do this to smell the wonderful scent of freshly-brewed coffee. You work your muscles to move, but you do this to go to the best spot for taking that Pulitzer-prize winning sunset photo. You work your brain to answer questions, but you do this in order to get the million-dollar prize.
So stop being melodramatic. No sense taking to heart what depressed ignoramuses bleat. Don’t be afraid to go to the next level. It is not the end of the world. It only ends when you stop trying. And stop throwing cliches around. It gets old quick.
