Friday Reading: Escape on a Workday

Happy Friday! Below is a quick writing sample from my journal. I'm trying to grab a few minutes (5, 10, 15 minutes) when I can to toss my thoughts onto paper. It's really quite liberating. I will share more as time passes.

After re-reading the below passage, I'm wondering if I'm the only one that thinks like this. So many colleagues go about their daily rituals. Are they wanting to escape like me? Or have they given up the fight? Did they ever want to fight in the first place? The notes end abruptly, but it's given me more thoughts on how I want to approach my life.

Yours in exploiting life!
Quinn

________

Do you ever get that sick, nauseous feeling when you think life is passing you by?

I did. Again. Today.

I'm sitting in my office. Surrounded by paper, pens, people, cubes, meetings - and all I want to do is bolt and find something exciting!

I hope it's just that it's Friday. It's been a long week of back to work after vacation.

I can hear the coworker in the next office on a conference call. I can hear both sides of the call. The whole beginning was talking about how many conference calls everyone is on. How do we get anything done if we're always in meetings? Answer: We don't.

We're supposed to delegate, but how do you have time to do this? You work more hours. You work late. You come in early. You work weekends. To get ahead, to be in more conference calls, have more annual reviews (don't get me started on these!), more time in an office.

Life is passing us by! What are we working for? Is it worth it?!

We need money to survive, but at what cost? We go home exhausted, sit on the couch, and watch t.v. Too tired to work on ways to get out of the rat race.

The constant need to do better, for a boss, who is just trying to do better for their boss. So we don't get fired. Because we're worried that we won't be able to pay our bills without the job. The money stops and how do we pay the rent, how do we pay for food, how do we pay for the car?

We're worried, so we work more, harder, digging ourselves in deeper.

Spending more money on entertainment and items that give us pleasure for the few minutes we an enjoy them (before working again). We spend money on a nice house. We spend money on a nice car, we spend money on nice clothes and expensive meals.

We have fleeting minutes of pleasure in exchange for our hard earned money. But then we get caught.

We spend more money to make ourselves happy then we're actually earning!

We put items on credit. We purchase a house/car with big loans. We now have monthly payments for items that are slowing diminishing in their entertainment/'wow' factor. So we need another fix!

But that will cost more money! So we work harder, more hours. Do better. Impress the boss, boss' boss, to get a raise, a promotion - which brings more hours of work/stress. So that we can afford the new, bigger, better, toys!

And we can't lose our jobs, because we wouldn't be able to pay the on-going payments for both our new and our old toys.

We're stuck. A rat in a cage.

We look out our windows into a foreign world, for a few minutes between conference calls.

We look at the hills, the trees, the sun. We wonder what it would feel like to wander those hills, in the trees, under the sun in the middle of a workday. Just a random Wednesday.

We feel guilty just thinking about it. It's not normal, we should be working during a workday. That's what weekdays are for.  Everyone works. You can't wander in the hills during the day. That's for the weekends - between the work you've brought home - to earn money, to pay for the enjoyment of life!

But is this life?

Is this living?

Can it be different?

Break the cycle?

No! That's wrong! Don't think like that!

No one breaks the cycle. This is how the world works!

Really? Yes, you have to earn your money - put in your 'time' to enjoy life once you retire (on a small retirement income).  You'll enjoy life then. Travel the world. Wander those hills, in the trees, under the sun during a random Wednesday.  When you're old. You'll probably need a cane to get up the hill. If the tree root trips you, you'll probably break a bone - since you're old.