Pathwalking 5
I am not my job. My job does not define me.
How many of us, along the path, fall into this trap? I mean, our job is the place where we spend 7 – 12 of our waking hours A DAY. It is very easy to let our job define us – and, as such, to define our path.
Now for a lucky few, their job DOES define them – because is it a chosen part of their path.
But for a lot of us – probably too many of us – we do the job we do because we have no choice but to be a Responsible Adult™. We have rent/mortgage, car and credit card payments, groceries…we all know this routine. To live a life of independence, we have to work a job, and we have to work a job because we have to earn money to live the independent life. This, of course, is a vicious circle.
And with this circle, we wind up in a dangerous repetitive pattern. Wake up, go to work, go home, take a few hours to do things you can’t do while at work, go to bed. Rinse, repeat. Five, sometimes 6 and 7 days a week this is our cycle. And as the pattern repeats, we find ourselves carried along, doing things automatically.
It is very, very hard to choose your path when so much of your daily routine is…well…routine.
I currently work more than one job, for various reasons. But my Monday through Friday usually goes as such: Get out of bed, putz around the house, play with my computer, check Facebook, make coffee. Prepare breakfast and lunch. Take a shower. Go to work.
Work 11:30 to 8pm. At work – answer calls, surf safe sites on the internet or write stuff like this on my computer between calls.
After work, go home, lounge around the house some more, play games on Facebook, watch some TV. Off to bed between 11:30 and 12:30. Repeat Tuesday through Friday.
Some days this gets slightly altered. A meeting before or after work, another job before or after work. Fencing one night a week. See my family one night a week. And if I can find the motivation, go to the gym before or after work. Rinse. Repeat.
It is so very easy to let this routine carry me, to control me. To let the routine dictate my life. To let the job that dominates 40+ hours a week define me. I do not WANT to wind up in this pattern – but I do.
How do I break my pattern? How do I choose my own path, and not let the routine dictate my life? This is the question I have been asking a long time now. This is the question that leads me to do this weekly blog.
There are many answers to this. Some are practical. Some, clearly, less so. The impractical are the most fun: Quit my job, sell all my ‘things’, go on walkabout.
The practical – find a more fulfilling job. Focus on my writing, my small business. Do things that break my cycle – be it the gym, taking a walk, or some other activity that is DIFFERENT.
But most of all – do things that MAKE ME HAPPY. Because, when all is said and done – isn’t that all any of us are seeking? Isn’t the main purpose of walking on our own path to find and do what will make us happy?
This is the fifth in my weekly posts. These weekly posts are specifically about walking along the path of life, and my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Thank you for joining me.
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