My friend’s girlfriend currently works an average of twenty-eight hours per month. No, not a week - you read it correctly - a month. From what I understand, she is barely satisfied with this arrangement, as she is a very busy lady. No, I do not know how she spends her time. I have some ideas, but I do not really care enough to investigate. No, she is not a stay-at-home mom to answer that question for you too. In my moments of snobbery, I have little respect for this woman. As I see it during those moments, she is lazy, has no direction, and flounders through life while mooching off of my buddy (although he allows the same to occur too). When I am not being judgmental, however, the truth is that I am probably pretty jealous of this woman’s luxuries and think that she is smarter than she appears on the surface. She is lucky. She does not seem to recognize the same except on occasion, but she really is lucky. She has figured out how to live a comfortable life in which she has an abundance of free time and a man whom will take care of her. She is able to, if she desires, sleep in, spend her days having lunch with her friends, and to shop at her leisure.
As things currently stand, I work an average of 60-70 hours per week. Sometimes I work more. On a rare occasion, I work a little less. Math has never been a strength of mine, but it seems to me that I work twice as much in one week as the woman referred to above does in an entire month. If I were to play out the math a little bit further: 28 (hours per month) x 12 (months) = 336 hours of work per year that the other woman completes; 65 (average hours per week) x 52 (weeks in the year) = 3380 hours of work per year by me. If I am actually smart and get myself organized, I sometimes swing a vacation here or there. Based off of my last pay stub, it appears that I never exceed more than two weeks of vacation per year, which is 80 hours. This brings down my hours worked per year to 3300. Now, if one were to subtract 336 from 3300, he or she would see that I waste 2964 more hours of my life each year working than this other woman. Yet, if you were to compare our houses and other material possessions, she seems to be doing much better than myself. I have to wonder – where exactly did I go wrong? It is all a little perplexing to me.
The fact is that this other woman and I are different. Although there is a part of me that fanaticizes about reducing my workload in the near future and being more like her, the truth is that I like to work. It gives me a sense of purpose, allows me to feel like I am contributing to my household, etc. I actually have no desire to be completely dependent on J and do not want that burden placed upon him either.
At the current time, I do not have the luxuries of the other woman mentioned. I wonder how things would be different if I did. I wonder how I would redistribute my energy. The fact is that I must manage my time well. I must be organized. Sometimes I have to do things that I do not want to do. As I compare our situations, I cannot help but wonder about the difference in the other woman’s energy compared to my own. You see, I have been spending a lot of time while commuting, on the phone, etc. reflecting about how I spend my energy. In the past, I have spent a lot of time being stressed out and worked-up about things I cannot control. Over the past several months, I have slowly begun to drift from this practice (although clearly I still have more room to grow in this area too). I now try to be more conscience about how I expend my energy. When I am overwhelmed, I laugh because doing anything else is ineffective. When someone is upset with me, I allow him or to be, as it is not my responsibility to make others happy with me and I do not actually have the power to do so. When things are complicated at work, I do the best job that I can do and expect others to do the same. I do not try to make up for their deficiencies, as that only compromises the quality of my own work. My energy is better spent maintaining a good attitude and motivating others rather than trying to do too much. My list goes on and on…
Right now, life is all about energy for me. I am being considerate of how I spend it. I am being more conscience of the fact that this is the only shot I get at life…I am the only one who gets determine how I expend my energy…
2 comments:
You and J have worked hard for the material things you have. There is pride in that. There is a sense of accomplishment, of pride in ownership and a sense of satisfaction. These are things that someone like the woman mentioned can't relate to. It is sad, but in the end, if the boyfriend were to leave her, she would not have much to call her own. I suppose she would move on and find another caring guy to bum off of.
and the baby makes 3:
Thanks for the comment. I appreciate it. So, first-- you're right, we do work hard and there is prde in that. However, please do not mistake my posting as meant to trash the other woman's way of life though. I really do not know what she finds pride in and am not convinced that if I were to find out that I would necessarily think that my values are better than hers. What I really considered as I wrote this post (and just used that woman as an extreme case to help illustrate my point) is how I use my energy. As you know, I am deaing with a lot of changes right now. I am just evaluating whether or not I am putting my effort where it is most needed and most effective....As always, thanks for stopping by...
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