Work is more than just work
Published by on January 5th, 2008 Comments Off
I have always lived under the philosophy that if one is going to spend the vast majority of one’s life in the pursuit of enough money to have a home, food, Playstation, then that work had better be worth far more than the remuneration package.
I came to this conclusion after growing up around so many people struggling to scrape a living, slaving in dead-end jobs with the pressures of social, peer, and family expectations burning into their own, personal sense of what life should be. Myself, I have scrubbed toilets and glued hundreds of James Dean Fan Club welcome packs – amongst other assembled cardboard creations – just to afford the heating on for an extra few hours a day over the winter. It offers a sense of perspective.
One might think that an unhappy job would provide the motivation to better one’s position and encourage other, potentially life-changing projects, while one may feel so comfortable in a happy, positive job, that other interests are not necessary. Quite the reverse. Unhappy jobs act like vampires to creativity and ambition. They generate despair and a very foggy horizon. To be creative and have the energy and opportunity to exploit that creativity, the rest of one’s life must be in a stable and positive state.
So think of work as an integral part of your life, and not something that gets in the way of what you want to do. Find work you want to do and allow the positive flow of your working life overflow into your personal life. I have done that, quite deliberately, and it has created potential I never would have thought possible just a handful of years ago.
Work is more than just work
Published by on January 5th, 2008 Comments Off
I have always lived under the philosophy that if one is going to spend the vast majority of one’s life in the pursuit of enough money to have a home, food, Playstation, then that work had better be worth far more than the remuneration package.
I came to this conclusion after growing up around so many people struggling to scrape a living, slaving in dead-end jobs with the pressures of social, peer, and family expectations burning into their own, personal sense of what life should be. Myself, I have scrubbed toilets and glued hundreds of James Dean Fan Club welcome packs – amongst other assembled cardboard creations – just to afford the heating on for an extra few hours a day over the winter. It offers a sense of perspective.
One might think that an unhappy job would provide the motivation to better one’s position and encourage other, potentially life-changing projects, while one may feel so comfortable in a happy, positive job, that other interests are not necessary. Quite the reverse. Unhappy jobs act like vampires to creativity and ambition. They generate despair and a very foggy horizon. To be creative and have the energy and opportunity to exploit that creativity, the rest of one’s life must be in a stable and positive state.
So think of work as an integral part of your life, and not something that gets in the way of what you want to do. Find work you want to do and allow the positive flow of your working life overflow into your personal life. I have done that, quite deliberately, and it has created potential I never would have thought possible just a handful of years ago.
