Mysteries of Life: Time, Tasks and the Ways We Avoid Working
Work.
We all talk a lot about it.
And we often feel like it is something we "have to" do, because it's expected of us in this society, and yet... for most people, work suggests something we do against our will.
Let's poke around in that for a bit, shall we?
This all started as a New Year's Blog Post...
I was sitting there, a couple of weeks back, trying to write in my personal blog and observed that it was New Year's Day, another one of those "calendar milestones" scattered throughout our year, along with things like Valentine's Day, Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, Birthdays and Christmas.
Still life with shell...
It feels to me like there is always something we are "celebrating" or something we need to be worried about celebrating. And I feel like I have spent a huge part of my life in the business of being "worried about" whatever is going to come next.
"Ooops... it was just Mother's Day. Now I need to start worrying about the Memorial Day Picnic. Ooops... it was just Memorial Day. Now I need to start worrying about planning for Father's Day. Oooops... it was just Father's Day. Now we need to start planning for the Independence Day celebration."
On a superficial level, these things are all there because they (allegedly) make us "happy," but I came to a couple of (possibly sketchy) conclusions, in taking a closer look at them.
The bottom line is that I really don't like these "days" ("mærkedage," as we call them in Denmark, where I grew up), and I like even less to "worry" about them. I'd be just as happy if we didn't "need" to celebrate anything, ever... except for "impromptu celebrations" arising to mark spontaneous successes, births and weddings as they come up.
Does that make me The Grinch? Hopefully not...
Anyway, this all got me to thinking about some of the "greater patterns" of the world, and how they really affect a lot of people negatively.
Work and the Fine Art of Taking Breaks
I am basically mystified by the way "work" is such a central part of the human existence, yet it feels like 95% of the human race will go to almost any lengths to avoid work, take breaks from work and generally not do work... rather than (ironically) "celebrating" it by doing their best and getting it done so they can play and have fun... with impunity.
Aspens near Estes Park, CO
Instead, they "work" tirelessly at "Not Working" employing a seemingly endless series of distractions, excuses and rationalizations for not getting done what was in front of them.
I remember some of my early days and impressions from living and working in the US (being pretty "fresh off the boat" from Europe in the early 1980's), and how it seemed like work actually consisted mainly of (A) taking a break or (B) planning when the next break was going to happen or (C) trying to get focused again after the last break.
All these breaks were usually being taken by people who complained a lot about feeling overworked. OK, then...
From my perspective, all I could think about was how can anyone expect to be even a tiny measure of productive, if all you're ever focused on is ways to not do what you're there to do? And how can you honestly sit around and be all butthurt and upset that "nothing got done" when you're actively investing most of your bandwidth in not doing anything?
Is Working Really THAT Bad... or are we just "Too Precious" to Work?
In my mind, this pattern of non-productivity begs the two greater questions of (A) have we really made work "so unpleasant" that we feel compelled to construct elaborate systems and ruses to AVOID it... and (B) maybe the better question is when did we all become such little "Princes" and "Princesses" who are "too precious" to actually work, and thus feel eternally entitled to just "play" all the time?
Frozen pond near our house
Maybe that sounds harsh, but "happiness" is actually a pretty new concept on the scale of human evolution...at least as a planned objective, rather than just a consequence of something fortuitous happening.
As someone who tends to be very firmly rooted in the "action A leads to consequence B" principle (hereunder "working leads to income which permits play") I really do find the whole thing thoroughly baffling.
What's more, there's a giant irony in the equation which is that I consider myself a huge lazy slacker, because I experience the sole purpose of work as being an activity that "buys" me the ability to slack some more. Yet that mindset seems to be at cross-purposes with how most of the world thinks and acts, and I it doesn't mean I believe I'm entitled to having anything handed to me on a plate.
From where I am sitting, the "eternal break-takers" are just trying to slack now and then end up in a place of eternal worry over the fact that they can never power down enough (and never take enough breaks!) to not be worried about the work they are not getting done, and so the whole "avoiding work" actually utterly self-defeating and stress-inducing.
That sentence, alone, is exhausting!
The "Truth" of Work, in Korporate Amerika?
Once upon a time, I worked for a Fortune 500 IT company... and one of the things always being discussed (and extensively complained about) was the "long work hours." People somehow felt like the company "owned" them.
Flowers near my parents' house, Spain
Bottom line though-- and let's keep in mind that this was primarily my perspective-- it really struck me that the fundamental truism was that these complainers were "AT" work for 11 hours a day, but "DID" work for only 2-3 hours a day. And the whole conundrum could so easily have been resolved by simply going to work and busting your butt for 5 hours a day and getting it done, and then going home.
As I have talked to more and more people over the years, this deeply skewed relationship between "time AT work" vs. "time actually WORKED" seems to exist in a huge number of companies and organizations. And then people sit around and scratch their heads, wondering why productivity is "suffering."
And so, I always keep coming back to "task based" work rather than "time based" work.
Here's my pile of work for the day: If I can get it done in five hours power to me, and I get to go home; it it takes me 12 hours to slowpoke my way through it, that is also OK. Let people do stuff at their own pace; let them be paid for each "task" they complete.
Of course, lots of people have engaged me in long arguments about such ideas that "If we did that, the company would just find MORE work for us to do."
In a practical sense, that is probably very true. Which again makes me think about the many ways in which we approach "work" from a completely insane and toxic angle.
Time, Tasks, Humans and Self-Employment
Maybe it's true that we have created a "greed based" corporate culture that just wants to "drain the life blood from us..." which really brings me to look at to one of our "fundamental ills" as a society, namely that we have created such a "time based" world, rather than a "task based" world... and the companies we work for are excessively focused on "hours worked" rather than "tasks completed."
Lake view near our house
As a human being this basic "nonsense" (again, just my opinion!) represented a substantial part of the reason why I ended up choosing self-employment. When self-employed, one of the key things we can do is work according to a "task oriented" system.
Of course, this can be an extremely challenging transition for someone who has spent years equating "working" with minutes ticking off on a clock, rather than actually "getting things done."
When you're self-employed, the only thing that keeps you from starvation is "getting things done." Watching YouTube videos of kittens or discussing the path to enlightenment with a Facebook friend will not pay for your groceries. And that really doesn't work for some people.
But-- at least for me-- it seems like a better option.
I know this post was uncommonly "rambly," but seriously? Isn't work-- most of the time-- just a weird set of contradictions?
How about YOU? Do you work long hours? Are you self-employed, or working for someone else? Does it seem like a lot time is wasted at workplaces? Do you think there is a better approach to working than "how many hours" you spend there? Have you ever worked anywhere that was "task based" rather than "time based?" Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!
created by @zord189(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 180114 19:59 PST
I enjoyed this, I've been 'self-employed' for over 6 years. I have to be autonomous, I can't work on someone else's clock. It does make you feel as if someone 'owns' you, or for me at least. I have to be able to pursue things that I'm interested in, or I lose myself, and feel like I turn into a robot. I'd rather make less money and be happy and centered with myself :)
Thanks! I think there is something very empowering about having the kind of ownership in your own life that comes with self-employment. Or even with being a contractor of sorts-- you go in, do something, leave and be done with it.
I'm still hopeful that the "less money" isn't a permanent part of this lifestyle, and feel better about that, every day.
I always feel so sad for people who spend every moment they are out of work talking about how they can’t wait for their next vacation. Funny thing enough they spend a lot time at work complaining at life at home. When they are on vacation they spend large amounts of it time droning on about the next time they get time off. But wait a moment???? You just wasted your vacation complaining about the thing you hate…. What kind of logic is this?
I’ve tied my work life into my non-work life to a point I just don’t know how many hours I spend on things anymore. Do I work 3, or 12, or 18hours a day 7 days a week? Was my last “vacation” during that hurricane that knocked our power out for half a week? Beats me. Watching the clock seems to be a waste of time.
I just do things till I just can’t anymore and then I find something new till I can’t anymore. So I tend to think things in terms of task-based. If something takes me 1 hour or 100 it's irreverent as it had to be done anyways.
People waste too much time stress over lost time. Why? That just wastes more time. Some people seem to do a billion things in a day while others just waste it away watching the time pass by them. While I put up a good front about being “existed” it’s Friday I really don’t care. It means nothing to me. I enjoy all days of the week. When I’m old and near death I would have wished I never wished away a single day in my life like I have for so long.
Mic drop...
The entire nature of work is changing so much that this whole discussion will become obsolete in another 10 years... or maybe 20 years? Automation and mechanization will take over so many jobs by 2050 that the whole notion of a "job" will be virtually unrecognizable through today's lens of perception.
A lot of skeptics (mostly economic conservatives) have their doubts about the viability of a "creativity based" economy, but we are already building it. It may not seem that way, directly... but we can even just use an example like Steemit; it's the gamification of social media. And we're all both workers, and builders of the economy. People come in and build apps, and create things and trade them. Just a tiny and very early example of a process that will take on landslide proportions in another decade.
And here's one for you... this isn't even NEW. We don't really pay much attention to it, but Second Life started creating the first virtual space "Alt Economy" already in 2003.
Entropia Universe January 30, 2003 >Second Life june 23, 2003 ? Maybe there was even something sooner. Or maybe EU was not developed enough at that point to be considering an alternative economy. I definitely was not around for the start of either.
While I played a little bit of second life I really only was a fisher and sometimes did some mining.
In Entropia Universe I mined high markup ores and work with a small group of miners so we had very detailed maps of where to find things.
Help someone run their shop and sold my own things in their shop as well. Inventorying, checking on prices in auction house.
Gather materials and turn them into hard to get things that people had no clue how to acquire. $$$$$$
Piloted spaceship and booked travel arrangements. (how many people can stay they made money doing that lol)
I have always enjoyed the Alt economy more than normal life stuff. I’ve been involved here or there already in it in some form for another for many years :)
@denmarkguy "the gamification of social media" Can I use that term. It's brilliant.
Re-steemed! My followers should be aware of what a Dane thinks about happiness at work.
As for the Holidays, I don't really believe that all of them exist as hooks we use to escape thinkink about work and working.
However I admit the existence of our will to feel compelled to construct elaborate systems and ruses to avoid working.
Reasons about it my opinion:
Being self emploed for me is a chance to shape my workspace in a way that includes all the benefits that the dream job could provide.
Nowadays though, we see more and more companies realizing the reality we are talking about and taking actions in the right direction.
As I can see it and understand it, Dane entrepreneurs play a key role in shiftting that old patternts into something different and more appealing for the rest of the world.
Let's drink for these fellows!
Cheers @denmarkguy! :) <3
Hi @steemfluencer, thanks for the visit and the support!
I definitely think about happiness while working, but I also recognize that this happiness is a consequence of doing things that feel engaging and meaningful; happiness itself was not the original objective.
I mostly brought the holidays into the picture as yet another example of how we end up viewing something that could be enjoyable and fun through a lens of perception that feels more like obligation.
A lot of people will vigorously defend the capitalistic system, but they often do so with blinders on. Capitalism can be a great thing, but like all ideologies it has its weaknesses... one of which is this thing called "investors." Because investor interests tend to be put ahead of the well-being of the company itself, the cogs in the wheel that make everything work in the first place tend to become dehumanized... and that becomes demoralizing after a while.
Well said @denmarkguy!
This is a huge topic and I already collected enough thoughts about a new publication.
I believe that the misinterpret perception of what a Holiday has various origins.
Investors' interest is leading to a certain way of leading organizations which inevitably leads to dissapointments that transform in dreams about days free of work..
And of course, it's not only capitalism.
In my opinion all Ideologies are an incredible collection that represent the human weaknesses.
A creative mind inside a human that is often not aware of who he is and why he is here often tends to glorifying his own ideas that almost always if not always result in hurting both supporters and enemies of the concrete ideology.
It might be a funny thing to observe from above if you live on the moon for example, or in Antarctida as a scientist OR if you just know yourself better at a degree that can help you determine the nature of the thoughts and cut the bad fruits from the very beginning.
Enjoy another beautiful winter week! Good night!
Probably my favorite line that people "work" tirelessly at "Not Working".
My dad was a tireless self-employed worker that taught from an early age to work hard. I don't work for myself (I work for a corporation) but it's time based. I dislike it as much as most people hate the corporate rat race. I find most of my "free time" is researching investments to some day be financially independent and/or find "work" that I actually enjoy doing. As they say do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life.
If I had it my way I would financial independent and spend most of my time volunteering and helping others. That's my dream anyways.
Well, I hope for you that you do find that exit door.
I'll be the first to admit that my first break with Korporate Amerika was scary, especially from the perspective that I was voluntarily agreeing to pretty much a 70% pay cut. Being independent has been hard as hell sometimes, but I haven't regretted it. If I have ANY regrets at all, it might be that I don't have 20 more years of having paid into a 401-K. But so it goes.
I'm a writer, and an artist, and an independent thinker. We're doing the things that create some degree of freedom...
Very inspirational, denmarkguy.
looks like a case of quality vs quantity, most employers want you to be at work even when their is nothing to be done, you must cloak the hours , they say but most time all your work can be done in less than 3hours. the less we work the more productive we are, when we are tired we become less creative. we are fighting activity vs productivity
I have read and heard something similar, and my (limited, since I chose to get OUT) personal experience backs up the idea... if I had just been left alone to do my work, I could usually have completed my daily tasks in about 2-3 hours... and yet I was trapped "at" work, often for 8-11 hours daily, six days a week. And it was nuts...
Precisely! And I found that even when I was not tired, I still was mostly doing "busy" work of no particular meaning... and the eternal "triple CYA" process: sending emails to people to let them know that the emails I am going to send them will be sent later."
The further the price of Steem ascends beyond $1.00, the less likely it is that I'll EVER have to worry about working.
Blogging on Steem isn't work ...it's play that pays..
Agreed.
This has definitely become an increasing part of what enables us to breathe a little easier, financially.
I've been poking around in some of the "nerdier" ends of the Steem ecosystem, and the idea of "$100 Steem* no longer looks quite as outlandish as I once thought... there is SO much beyond just this social platform that can help drive up the price of the Steem token.
oh hell yeah.
spam free email for example.
good pictures
good life time
God bless you
So true
It is amazing post.
thanks for the important info