Scary fact of the week: we spend one third of our life at work.
Now that’s certainly one reason why we should make our work environment as inviting as possible, and I am not talking about the trend of open plan offices, pot plants on your desk or avoiding the colleagues who simply zap your energy.
I am thinking of You, your Self. What can you do to create the environment that is at least bearable?
The question takes us back to why we work initially. Sure nowadays we need to pay bills but much, much further back it was more than watching numbers rise and fall on one’s bank account. We worked to survive, to grow potatoes and rye to feed ourselves. And as I look out over the fields of the Wye valley, watching the farmers bringing their harvest crop in for this year, you get a sense that this hasn’t changed at all.
We still need to survive; with society having a more complex structure in modern times, more roles have been created and now some do more physical work with instant output, others do non-physical (office) work with output that might not be visible for most of the time.
Those who have been following my blog for a while – or just those who have been reading back five years – know how obsessed I am with the word purpose
“The reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.” (OED)
Of course man needs a purpose, a creative outlet, a reason for existence. Why would we otherwise be here?
Some believe that their purpose is to work 9 to 5 and fade out in front of the telly at home. They have no life energy anymore at the end of the day because their forced existence drained them almost from the moment when they wake up, dreading to go to work.
Others rise to the challenge of balancing their human purpose with the purpose society has created for them (often working from 9 to 5 and then from 5 to 9 as creative outlet).
On average, the socio-economic purpose doesn’t match with our true purpose, and if we do not seek to understand our very own reason for existence, we become ill (mentally and/or physically).
That is indeed scary, and those with higher energy and body awareness will almost physically see themselves decline.
I cannot offer an answer to your existence. Everyone is different after all. The general rule though perhaps is to be open and observe yourself.
