I essentially have my dream career. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, and here I am. I also get to make my own hours and work however much I want. I am in total control.
So why the fuck was I working 50+ hours a week not so long ago?
If you’re wondering whether there’s a threshold one can hit wherein even a dream career turns into a chore, the answer is yes. Absolutely. And I did it to myself.
So I started pulling back. At first, I made an unbreakable boundary around Sunday. No work on Sunday.
Not even close to drastic enough, though. I expanded that boundary to Saturday, as well. No working on weekends.
That only left 5/7ths of my life to work. That was what “normal” people did, right?
And then I remembered that the average person is fucking miserable.
I started taking a week off work every quarter, two in December for the holidays. Still not enough.
Determined that it was not the writing itself but the quantity of it that was wearing me out, I scratched all of December from my work calendar the following year. Definitely closer. January wasn’t a drag-ass shitshow for once. I was excited to get back to my writing and consulting!
This year, I’ve gone a step further to take Fridays off. A four-day workweek. And not because I’ve heard that it will make me more productive. My life doesn’t exist to create commodities. I’ve gone down to four days because I think it might makes those four days more enjoyable. And I already know it makes Friday-Sunday more enjoyable. I have Friday to catch up on errands and chores I’ve put off through the week, giving my a sense of peace, then Saturday and Sunday to connect with friends, read, and rest.
I’m halfway through my first year of doing this, and, yeah, never going back. So many people delay enjoyment now for the sake of earning money that will allow them to enjoy life at some point in the future that isn’t even guaranteed. Why? That seems like a failure to me. I want to enjoy the present, and it doesn’t take all that much money to do so. Technically, it takes none at all.
But I’m going even a step further. I’m putting important things first in my day, and I don’t gauge something’s importance on what money it will make me. This morning, I slept in an extra hour because I had shit sleep and woke up exhausted. My energy is important to me (not because it makes me money, but because it empowers me to enjoy the day), so I gave myself what I needed. After that, despite being “behind” on my tightly crafted schedule, I sat and ate breakfast in the dining room, because feeding myself what my body needs is important to me.
I would’ve been easy to eat breakfast at my desk, but instead, I read a book, because I was feeling intellectually empty-headed and needed to prime the pump with thoughts. Feeling like I’m not scraping the bottom of the barrel while I write is important to me. And then I revised yesterday’s work and enjoyed it very much.
Next on my list was writing. But some other need was eating at me. For whatever reason, my soul needed peace today. (Probably because yesterday had a lot of adults behaving like children, and I find that exhausting.) When I tapped into what would bring me peace, it was straightening up, being mindful of each item I picked up and put in its place, and feeling gratitude for the house where I spend most of my waking hours. That peace led me back to my work, which was delightful news!
I’m half a day “behind” my work schedule as a result, but what was the purpose of that schedule to begin with? It was a hopeful roadmap for my future self to complete projects by an arbitrary date and thereby “earn” happiness at the accomplishments and payout.
But I did plenty today, and I’ve already experienced that happiness in the only place that ever exists: the present. I have faith that the projects will get done in the right amount of time because I enjoy doing them and frequently choose to spend my time that way.
I know my ability to live this way comes from a place of privilege (a lot of privileges, really, that gave me the tools to make decisions that led me here). But I also know that there are plenty of people with the same kinds of privileges as I have who do not yet see that they’ve been lured into stupid games with stupid prizes by Capitalism. I also know there are people with many fewer privileges than me who have also rejected the empty promise of future happiness in exchange for present happiness. Sometimes we look at their living situation and only see the lack of money, not the richness of experience. Then we call them lazy. They should get a real job.
Why? So they can be miserable like the majority of people with “real” jobs?
This is not to glamorize poverty, but there is a lot of room between living without basic necessities and living like a multi-millionaire that most of us occupy.
I’m shocked by how much rest I require for peace, joy, and happiness. I’ve been lied to that a 40-hour workweek isn’t too much work or that it should be the minimum for godsake. We’ve all been lied to.
A year ago, if you’d asked me to choose between taking more time off work than I absolutely needed or taking less time off than I absolutely needed, I would’ve chosen taking less time off than I needed. And that is the absurd response of a brainwashed person. It’s likely a very common response, too.
Lately, I’ve committed myself to taking more time off than I think is absolutely necessary for my functioning. An abundance of free time. When I feel tired, I rest. Then sometimes I build in random rest days when I don’t feel exhausted.
This is the best life has ever felt. I see now that my decades of depression and self-contempt had no validity at all to them. They were the side effects of the Work Lie. The belief that I needed to constantly be a “productive” member of society turned rest into a lack of worth, and turned me into a bad person for needing it.
I’m sitting at Central Market as I write this, enjoying a long lunch. I think I’ve said what I have to say on this subject, so I’m going to finish drinking some water, read another chapter of my book, and go home. I have a consulting call in a few hours, and my pottery class tonight. None of the remaining time today is yet accounted for, and that feels like real luxury.