Living 9 to 5
To be honest, I’ve always been a little scared of 9-5. It’s a bit like paying taxes - a slice of your life that you’re not allowed to keep.
As I drag myself out of bed, the Stereophonics front man Kelly Jones sings: ‘I don’t live to work, I work to live, I live on the weekend’.
But I don’t want to just survive the week… what if the weekend is a let down? Thinking of the money doesn’t quite cut it for me.
I’d love to go adventuring, to travel the world, no diary, no desk. But I’m broke. Work will always be inevitable. So how do I resolve my work/life tension? How do I make it more than a chore?
Making the most of it
Sometimes it’s just that I’m in the wrong job, and it’s time to move on. But other times, (maybe most of the time), it’s more about how I see my job. I guess the key questions for me are - ‘Am I contributing something?’, ‘Can I be myself at work?’, and ‘Am I using my talents?’
I understand myself well enough to know that I work better in a team, I need to believe in what I’m doing, and I need to be motivated by clear goals.
I’m wary of having a consumerist attitude to work, of ‘career-shopping’. But if I’m playing to my strengths in an environment that allows me to express myself, then I’ll be more productive. Essentially, if my heart’s in it, then I’ll do a good job and be a good employee. If my heart is elsewhere, like still in bed for example, then work becomes a chore, and I’m not really living.
So I don’t live to work, I work to live. But I want to be living fully in everything I do, including my job.
Written by Becky Williams.
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