One day I didn’t feel like going to work
Some people call them weekdays
This one goes out to all of you who feel, chronically and/or acutely, that going to work is, well…work. I wouldn’t mind being the guy who was known for proposing the 3-hour work week. My suggestion of a 3-hour work week is based on the concept, and with some experience, that working on average more than 45 minutes per day for four days per week is detrimental to human well-being. Now, I define work as doing something you don’t want to do. As the economic beings that we are often reduced to, this largely means those activities where we simply exchange your life energy for money — most people call them jobs, where you sell yourself to someone else — and shortchange your quality of life . Of course, it could mean squashing spiders occupying your living space — which generally fits well into one’s 45-minute allotment. No doubt, one of the handier practices in achieving a 3-hour work week, is learning to like what you do. A version of this would be called Karma Yoga in Hinduism. However, those of us living in Western civilization may be better able to relate to following our passions, structuring our life in such a way that our passions flow more freely. Unfortunately, Westerners are socialized from birth to achieve security through money, and that money will give us freedom. Perhaps the best illustration of why this doesn’t work can be had by simply observing Western culture over my lifetime (50-odd years — some would say very odd!). For instance, the U.S. has over three times the material wealth that it had when I was born. Also, a dream from those days, and perhaps these days still, is for increasing leisure, often brought about by technological advancement minimizing boring or routine tasks. Well, this hasn’t happened. In fact, Americans work longer work weeks than they did in recent generations — with the added “benefit” of having more household members selling themselves outside their home. We are no happier. I suspect that a more workable solution to living consistent with our passions would be to downgrade the whole money gives us freedom thing and start with the question, “What would I do if money were not an issue?”
You may have noted that clustering the work over four days implies that at least three or more days a week should be free of work. I see the practice of sabbath as essential to create and re-create our lives. My own personal take on this progressive spiritual practice would be to take off every seventh year, every seventh month, every seventh day, every seventh minute, and every seventh second. This represents the re-centering our lives around something other than “work” — read “money,” and practicing mindfulness at all times, in all that we do (or don’t do). Plus, as an addendum to this progressive journey of sabbaths, I am partial to the Jewish concept of the year of jubilee practiced. The year of jubilee is a sabbath year of sabbath years (every 49th or 50th year), where property returns to its original owners, recognizing that God owns that land (and all), and serves to prevent accumulation and concentration of wealth due to the vagaries and greed of human life. Making such a grand project a reality definitely provides a lot of work that I can be passionate about!
