It occurred to me one day early last week that my work routine has become monotonous, stagnant and increasingly boring. I discovered this when I found myself browsing through photos of a stranger's cat wearing a halloween costume. If memory serves, I was on photo 23 of 38 when a voice in my head asked me to stop and reflect. How had I gotten here? Why was this how I had chosen to spend the past 15 minutes or so of my life? Let's think. After some real detective work, this is what I discovered: 14 minutes earlier I had been responding to a work email. It was the same generic follow-up email I've sent about 43 times a day for the past two years or so. But then, in mid-sentence - mid-word actually, I was stricken with a boredom so extreme that I was inclined to stop dead in my tracks because, well... that's what I actually felt like - something dead on the tracks. I then proceded to simply stare at my monitor for a good six minutes. Can you say vegetable? Without any kind of cranial activity, I had soon navigated to Facebook and, like Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf, I had uncontrollably transformed into something else. But what I changed into wasn't some furry, high-school basketball wolfman; it was something else. I'd become some sort of brainless zombie, searching for some semblance of stimulation.
And what's worse is it always seems that right when I finally find that YouTube video of Andy Samberg waving his flippy floppies or harmonizing with Michael Bolton that really gets me, I'll catch my approaching boss in my peripherals and my limbs will jerk as I frantically try to close all windows and return to my half-drafted email. "Hi David, I hope all is well. Just wanted to circle back with you to see if you had any feedback or questions for me regarding blah blah blah blah." Shoot me in the face.
Upon further reflection, I realized that this is, in fact, a growing problem for me. I feel under-challenged, unexcited, my skills are under-utilized... I find myself transformed into this zombie-like version of myself constantly throughout the day and it got me wondering about my lifestyle and the apparent need for some kind of change. But how? This is my job. And maybe it beats scrubbing toilets or flipping burgers or something. Or does it? At least with those other jobs, I would be on my feet more often. I'd be getting exercise. I'm a pretty active guy. Maybe I'd like that. I go to the gym most days. I run. I swim. I play sports. I like climbing, traveling, fishing, hiking, camping and spending time outside. But I can't do those things because I'm paid to stare at my laptop all day. I read recently that the average American consumes roughly 10 hours and 45 minutes of media every day. That includes cell phones, computers, TVs, etc. And I think, sadly, I probably fit nicely into that bracket. (I find myself listening to music on my iphone while watching football on my own personal TV screen while running on the treadmill at the gym.) You can't get much farther from a natural running experience than that. (Ideally, I'd be running barefoot in the rain through the woods of Santa Cruz. But, sadly, I don't live in Santa Cruz, I'm afraid I'd hurt my soft, white feet by running barefoot and... it's not raining.) It's sad that we even need to run. If you told someone a few hundred years ago that people would lead such sedentary life-styles that they would need to run in circles just to avoid getting fat, it would have blown his mind. But I digress...
I work for a technology start-up and part of my job requires my familiarity with all sorts of new and emerging technologies. However, I'm of the general opinion that the quality of our lives, in this day and age, would likely be better with less technology and less media consumption each day. This is not the most ideal or conducive mentality for me to have if I want to excel or rise within my company.
Anyway, I decided the other day, in a desperate attempt to break-out of my routine, to take up the banjo, switch gyms, buy a pair of skis (I'm a long-time snowboarder) and... well... start this blog. Any day now I'll be banjo battling Steve Martin, pumping iron like the big dogs, skiing with the pros and well... blogging some more. Hopefully this will provide the creative outlet that I am probably looking for. So far I've been pretty happy with these changes.
In conclusion, we work to make money to pay for the things that we need and for some of the things that we want. I always thought that I'd find a job that I loved and that work would be fun. Maybe I still will. But a friend recently said to me, "Work sucks for everyone - it just sucks less for some people than for others. It's all varying degrees of suckiness." Words of wisdom? Or the pessimistic perception...? I suppose, in the end, it's all about the balance.
In my experience you can have a job you love, but then you'll have to live on the cheap during that period in your life. The fun jobs never pay. You can be a dog or a seal trainer, a composter for the City Gardens, a trapeze artist for the circus, or a poetry teacher. I found the latter amazingly enjoyable, and I was lucky enough to have a partner who was willing to do the other kind of job and make the money. If we had both chosen the fun jobs, we would have had a very different life style.
ReplyDeleteWhich might have been fine.
But in these economic times, I'm not sure it could even be done, for both people to choose pleasure over economic stability, especially if those two people wanted to raise children they didn't have to hire out as chimney sweeps.
Maybe you can put away some big bucks now and later choose the fun, rewarding life, at least for some amount of time. AND. Maybe there's an exciting, engaging well-paying job out there with your name on it!