[Musings] Heading to a meeting soon
Scarfing down a rather poor salad (Thursday is salad day) from the food kiosk (closest source of sustenance to my office) before I go to a noon meeting. This made me think about how much of a hurry everything is in. A lot of this hurry is self-imposed. I don't have to go to this meeting, I should as it is the team meeting. But if I am late, I will still be employed.
Another example is my workload. I put pressure on myself to meet a deadline because I don't like confrontation or to see someone disappointed. But, in almost all cases, if I miss a date (which I do frequently because it is hard to balance home, work, fun, and break everything into enough time slices to accomplish everything in a week), I won't be fired. I may not get a raise (which in America = praise, employers don't truly thank you unless they give you more money, everything else is just a boss trying to show you that he personally understands what you are doing and it trying to encourage you, but employers show their thanks in the form of more $$$).
Time is a funny thing, there is never enough of it until you are dead. I think the world needs to downshift a few gears. Let a day be a day. Not work cycle, eat cycle, sleep cycle.
*EDIT* Or I could just get out of IT and move to a less stressful, possibly less paying, but more relaxing (like gardener). I have accomplished a lot at work, it just doesn't feel that way. The workload is so deep, you can't appreciate that something is done and accomplished as the next thing is already pressing. Just take a deep breath and move to the next.
5 comments:
Slow down? Nice idea but if we slow down at this point (and I mean American when I say we) we will crash.
Hummm…. That might be a good thing. Good for the spirit, the humanities and the family. Bad for the economy and every one’s pocket book. Not to mention convenience. But as spoiled as I am I like the family, spirit and humanities over convenience.
Yup, we need to eat better/slower/more often, spend more time with family (with the TV off), take more walks (unless you live in MN in the winter), drink better coffee (and less of it), drink alcohol more often (better in quality and less in volume), read more (slower and more thoughtfully), listen to more live music (it never sounds as good at the CD but it is more alive), take a month of vacation each year (and leave the country—Canada and Mexico don’t count!)….
I feel like I should end that by saying something about ‘frozen winter s*&t’ and a ‘pig on antibiotics’.
We need a cultural overhaul. But how utopian and nuts-o does that sound?
It has to start somewhere.
If we do it, others might be inspired by what we have done and will adopt it. They in turn will inspire others. A new cycle is created and over time the old fades.
You are very optimistic... I admire that.
My suspcion, honestly, is that things will get so bad that they'll eventually get violent and cause a showdown.
Inflammatory thinking? Nope. Just aware of history.
Of course, we Americans are an odd lot. We work hard and barely relax, all the while claiming that we "play hard". But if we're shown a different style of living we immediately consider lesser than our own, 'enlightened' existence.
Consider this: I had a conversation with a co-worker at my current gig about the American propensity to work towards death or burn-out, whichever comes first. I mentioned how Europeans seem to have a better handle on how to work and got interrupted.
"Oh, they don't have it as good as we do here," the woman -- a secretary of an exec -- said. "I know. I've gone to Europe a few times on vacation. I've seen how they live."
"Really?" I said. "'cause, you know, I lived in England for three years, and Germany for four years. My mom is British, and I got to know people in Germany really well. After a while the biggest difference between us and them was that they live in a smaller place and seem to be a lot less stressed than we are."
"But they have no pressure to excel there," the woman countered.
"Sure they do," I replied. "Why do you think their economy is so strong?"
"Oh, they have a terrible economy!" she said, flabbergasted.
"Have you seen the exchange rate for the Euro?" I countered.
...and round and round it went.
Here's my thing: Europeans have learned after suffering through two devestating World Wars that there really is more to life than just work. By contrast, our country was settled by a bunch of religious zealots that were so out-there that they got kicked out of their a couple of countries. That alone should serve as a warning to us all.
The Europeans are 'lazy' and 'un-ambitious' compared to Americans. But our idea of work and ambition are pathological (read: compulsive) and (borderline) insane. Despite our ‘drive to work’ we seem to run around like morons a lot of the time—and I see that first hand living in NYC. Actually, maybe it is because of our unbalanced drive that we run around like morons. It is not ambition it is obsession; the space between doing what we can and doing what we feel compelled to do is filled up by obsessing over nothing, or trivial things that we are convinced are important and within our ability to control. Europeans have a sense of balance and perspective that we lack. And I think other parts of the world my have more of it than them—I am thinking of Africa specifically since I have been there.
Even if the US has a stronger economy than Europe it doesn’t mean much. We may win in that sense but at what price? They are certainly a more healthy culture—and I am not talking in terms of longevity or hygiene. They are healthier in respect to work, leisure, ambition and death. That counts for a lot more than economic numbers, at least for me.
This is all part of the reason why I am choosing to move abroad, to a now third world country that was part of the Soviet Union. I figure that is a better place for my kids to be for the next couple of years. In truth it is a less stressful (and lazier) place for my wife and I. That means we can be more relaxed and spend more time with the kids—and that is the most important thing for kids.
As far as a violent revolution: I doubt the US will have a violent revolution. We are truly domesticated animals. Our society and its global hegemony will slowly crumble from within as we are choked by globalization. But that moves into another topic I think….
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