Musings- Work

Work or not to work? Now that’s the question.

Ok, I’ve officially fully leaned into the fact that I’m using this blog as my own personal journal, in the past I’d weave my life within the midst of a review or recommendation, but this is my outright random musings this week, so dear reader, I give you full permission to skip this post if you like. *Smile*.

So, for the last 6 weeks I’ve been on my annual epic end of year/Summer holidays, it’s so routine now that work knows that this boy does not work in the month of December. Haaha. So, at first the initial 2 weeks were like any of my other holidays, just at home on my own, trying to keep myself occupied i.e. some online learning for self-development, playing the bass a bit, listening to podcasts/audiobooks, and of course my daily arvo nap. *Smile*. But right at the end of the first 2 weeks, dad passes away, and the following 2 weeks of 2023 was spent doing all of that stuff which follows a death in the family. And when the New Year swung around, it was 2 weeks of trying to get back to normality before work started up again, which I had to admit, I failed miserably. As it turns out, I was probably a little bit depressed about life after dad’s sudden passing.

So, as my work colleagues returned to work a week earlier than I, they were already sending me work to be completed on my return. I’m horrible at completely disconnecting from work, so I couldn’t help but still check my work emails each morning, so in that final week I was well aware that work was piling up pretty badly, awaiting my return. And I felt super anxious because of it. With my depressed mood, I felt I couldn’t manage the return to work, and I toyed with the idea of just quitting work all together, take some time out and start a fresh somewhere else when I was mentally prepared. But admittedly, I only entertain these thoughts for a short period, as I’ve been with my company coming on 14 years now, I’m good at what I do (if I do say so myself) and being blind I didn’t want to prove myself all over again with a new employer. So, to face my anxiety head on, I did what people always advise not to do, which is I did the work in my own time. Haaha. My thoughts were, why just sit here and worry about it, when I could use my free time now and just do it, get it out of the way so the return to work didn’t seem so daunting. And my goodness! For the first time since dad passed, I was able to focus my thoughts on something else, and when I was done with the work, it was the first time in weeks I felt a little bit elated, as I had obtained a sense of accomplishment.

So, as week one of back to work is behind me, I’m just reflecting back on the idea of work. And the funny thing is that we just had our one day a fortnight in the office day this Wednesday, and colleagues were talking about the $100M Powerball draw on the next day, and that usual discussion of ‘would you come back to work the next day if you won’ conversation arose. And I think the general consensus was, no, they wouldn’t come back to work the next day if they became a millionaire overnight.

But I’m here to say, I think work is good for us. For the following reasons (and let’s set aside the matter of money for this discussion):

It gives us purpose

Why do you get up out of bed in the mornings? Probably due to the ‘call of nature’, but what stops you from going back to bed after you’ve satisfied those needs, and then sleep the morning away? Yeah, it’s work. If you know that people are depending on you, and you’re expected to be somewhere, do something, it gets you out of bed in the mornings. In the final week of my holidays when I was moping around the home, there were several days I spent half of the day in bed, and I felt so much worse after that. So, work gives us purpose to get going each morning.

It enables more human interaction

When I’m on my epic 6 week year end holidays, oftentimes the only people I’d actually speak to was my immediate family. But being at work definitely expands your horizons. And as you’re interacting with work colleagues (some of whom hardly know you and know what’s going on in your life), so you put on an act. So, this week alone, I think my mood has improved a bit more. As I had to pretend for my colleagues sake, like nothing was going on/business as usual, and I guess sometimes pretending/acting, it starts to become no-longer an act- like that psychology experiment showed, if you pretend to smile (by biting onto the end of a pencil), your mood actually improves as a result. So, after a week of putting on a fake smile, maybe I feel better as a result of being fake?

And it gives us a sense of satisfaction

Oh, my goodness! If I could bottle the feeling of elation when you’ve completed an involved task, or that feeling you get when you shut down your computer for the day! Damn, I’d be sipping from that bottle all day long (please don’t tell me that’s how taking drugs feel like……). But I think the main reason why I’d work, and keep working until someone tells me not to, is for that feeling alone! Experiencing that sense of satisfaction you get after a hard days (or a productive) days work. That’s why Fridays are oh so sweet! And why more and more people are working well beyond their retirement age, because of the joy they get from being productive and feeling like you’re contributing to something greater than just yourself.

So, for the past decade, my driving force was to make sound investments (at the cost of our immediate satisfaction), so that my wife and I could accumulate enough passive income for both of us to retire early, for me it was 52 (the same age my dad retired), and younger than that for my wife. But now that I’ve had this time to reflect, I’m asking myself, is that what I really want? Yes, my dad transformed his life after he retired and completely launched a second act for himself. However, on the other hand, with less to do, my mum lost confidence in herself so now that dad is gone, this path ahead of her all alone now is seemingly even more difficult. So, if I could learn from all life’s lessons, from this difficult module I think my takeaway is chasing a dream of an early retirement, so I have time to do what I really want to do while I’m still young? Yeah, I think I need to dream up a new dream for myself, as us humans have been designed to work. And this is also why AI is so concerning, they say AI is here to help us be more efficient, freeing us up to do things we want to do with our new found freedom. But honestly, what would you do if you had an extra 2 hours more in your life? Trust me, having too much time on your hands is not a good thing- I’m a bad sleeper, and recently I’ve been getting up at 2.30am, so each day I’ve been getting 2 extra hours to do stuff, and guess what? Days just feel very, very long then.

So yeah, baby, if you’re in a privileged position where you have a choice of working or not working. Let’s roll up our sleeves, pull up our socks, and let’s get to work!