I think I was made for a 24-hour workweek.
A few years ago I had a part-time job as a nanny. The hours were perfect: I got to sleep until I woke up naturally, and do my errands during the day while it was less crowded. I had more time to journal, dream, and do art projects. I worked on my novel. I hiked through woodlands or walked along the creek every day.
But I couldn’t financially afford it. I added freelance jobs, then additional caregiving jobs. Once I had three different jobs each day, plus whatever freelance alterations work I could find. There was a summer I estimated I was working 45 to 55 hours a week, not counting the travel time in between job locations.
It was a lot. I’m really grateful to have just ONE job now which pays the bills and gives me a sense of fulfillment.
But I still wonder whether a 40 hour workweek is healthy. No matter how organized I am as I start the week, or how well I handle the situations my clients throw at me, I end up feeling profoundly disconnected by Friday. And there is never enough weekend time to heal that disconnect AND get organized for the next week.
Usually I settle for a little of both and pray for time & energy to get the rest done by Tuesday.
I’ve been thinking about where I want to go in my career, what skills I want to add, what important things I want to incorporate.
I think our society has forgotten what our levels of productivity used to be. We have forgotten that we didn’t used to be this connected, this instantaneous, this seasonless. We used to stop for night, bad weather, illness, and human frailty.
We used to get less done without the aid of fax, email, and wireless internet. But instead of taking that extra, “saved”, time from our “new” technology and giving it back to us, society decided that we could be even more productive by using it to do more of what we are doing.
The only problem is that –I don’t know about you–my brain gets fried going at that pace. Fried brain = less able to take care of my basic needs (grocery shopping, cooking, housework), more likely to pay others to do that for me…but only a very few people in our society are paid commensurate to the “new” higher productivity and are realistically able to afford that.
There are always crises in my line of work. Someone doesn’t have grocery money, needs immediate medical attention, is in danger of losing assistance in one of the programs they use, or has a personal issue. Some weeks I juggle a client with a relative who gets pissed at me vs. a client with a psychiatric issue. So for me, cutting back on my hours is not a possibility.
But I still dream of a time in the future when we will rebalance our civilization to protect personal downtime and create realistic expectations of job productivity. I dream of what life would be like in a more tribal-style community, where we support each other instead of having to go it alone so much of the time. I dream of a society without money. I dream of a world with art created by everyone. I dream of sustainable habits.
I dream of being able to give of myself up to the point where I need to stop, and stopping because the world recognizes and respects that point. I dream of stepping outside that cookie-cutter world where we all work 40-hour workweeks because we just do, or because we must in order to stay afloat.
I dream of that magic moment when I see that my contribution is valued at the same time that I can contribute without being drained, while feeding my soul and being fully present in my life.
Wow. That sounds like a far-fetched fairy tale or the entitled ramblings of a spoiled, naive child.
But at the same time, are
- Contributing to the larger world
- Coming from a place of balance and strength
- Nurturing myself
and
- Being present and aware
…really that entitled of concepts?
