The last few weeks I've been thinking more about how much I dislike being pressured to live such a fast pace of life. I shared with someone recently that I know several people who are on-the-go and working for around 16 to 19 hours a day (yes, sleeping barely five hours a night). The person I told, nodded and said "yeah, that's what a full time job is." I wrote a paper last year for my Health Psychology class looking at the increased pressure for people to work in excess of 100 hours a week, particularly as technology advances and people can work from home - or even in the car. This is not limited to the USA - a friend in Australia was sharing how they'd spent 2 days at an office in one city and had to work on the plane back to their home city and then worked 12 hours as soon as they stepped off the plane. Not only does it scare me, that we are quite literally spending our lives working, but it frustrates me that this is being accepted and even encouraged.
In one of my previous jobs, it was not uncommon for me to have so much work that I was in the office at 7am and leaving shortly before midnight. Yet, when a group of colleagues started having coffee together during lunch hour, we realized that it's not necessary. I remember one colleague (who reads this blog and is a dear friend to this day) suggesting that if we told ourselves that we were only allowed to work one hour of overtime each day, that we'd probably be more careful in how we spend our work hours and we'd also be more protective of our work time. Since that time, I've tried to be the kind of person who can be described as "showing up to work." If I start work at 9am, I'm normally there by 8:45am. I'll spend those 15 mins getting a coffee, saying hellos and getting set up for work so that by 9am I'm diving in and only take breaks at allotted times. Then when it's time to go home, the switch goes off. I'm the person who starts shutting down the computer 5 minutes after the 'end of the day.' That means when I'm home, I'm home mentally and not feeling that maybe I should've stayed to get that last phone call that came in.
There are two BIG problems with this.
1. Managing the expectations of other people - particularly those who "fail to plan" (ie: expect me to help them with their consequential emergency). I've had a lot of people judge me and resent me for my dedication to not working longer hours, and for taking a stroll around the block when "mayhem" is hitting the fan. Of all the things I've learned from my 10 years of working in 'the real world' - everything gets worse when you lose your mental health. There comes a point in every work-related trial, where you have to tell everyone to just hold their horses, while you go take a breath, get away and regain focus and perspective. Some people don't get this - but as a wise friend once told me "You can't make sense of anything when you go cross-eyed".
2. Being a student where I essentially have a "boss" for each class has made this a 'second time round' of the life lesson. My first two years of school were insane. As a couple friends who knew me in my first semester will know - I took on too much and was living at 100mph. Go figure that when real troubles came (like being warned that I was failing a class and having a stressful (!) living situation) that I collapsed, lost my focus and nearly lost my faith. I was so busy accomplishing stuff, I forgot to live. However - this summer - as I shared at the start of this blog, was a turning point. Spending two weeks traversing seven states and seeing the magnificent beauty of the Western States - reminded me that I need to take times to breathe.
This week, I had a lot of emotions about my Dad that distracted me from school. This first half of the semester has been emotionally charged and I've not been doing as well at school work as I should be. With a list of things that have to be done ever increasing, I had to just stop. I stopped pressuring myself, and started getting out in the sun more. I took several long walks and met up with a couple friends. I'm getting school work done, but have much still to do. Ultimately however, I know that giving myself this mental space is wise.
So I'm taking the opportunity to lazily stroll through a park and kick up the autumnal leaves like a child,
to bask in rays of sun shining through the trees in a forested area, to sip a cup of tea and listen to old CD's that got me through teenage years with a strong faith, and even to stop and watch a squirrel hop across the yard with one acorn in his mouth and another in his paws, wondering how many young ones he is providing for this winter.
I know that these moments make me human.
Being human makes me a better student, employee, friend and sister-in-Christ.
Post-Script:
I've been reminded of a song that came out in 2000 but has been re-released by different artists. It's called "I hope you dance" - it meant a lot to me when I had to recover from a "hell-bent heart" and it meant a lot to me when my Dad passed away - and after this summer as I try to live life to the full, the reminder to be in awe, in wonder and to keep dancing....it's all encouraging reminders that there is more to life than trying to please everyone by doing everything.
