I've never liked long days. I like my days shortened. Many people I know work all over the country or the world, but none seems to enjoy the blurted out if anyone in his inner corner wants to do things more strategically.
I guess what a lot of us do on our days off is fantastic. None of us complain because it makes the most precious of precious elements of the world — time for our very own amusement. The fact that many of us get that time from home gives our careers a high and outsized place in our lives since most of us live primarily in the office, at least on weekdays. I wish it were better utilized.
As for that alternate work, I must say, it's fantastic to see how often we spend time doing it. This summer, I taught at college, and on summer vacation, I was teaching online at small offices in America and the United Kingdom. I know I am not the only one who has taken this next step in our lives. It is so rare to find someone taking this idea of work from the office to the home to the wilderness with a great deal of energy and enthusiasm. This brings me to philosophical meditation.
How much can we rely on work, anyway? It's a subject for a different article, but I think work will forever continue as a keystone of our lives. Yes, some people thrive on the further development of work and other technological challenges, and they will always have the potential to do so.
But if we truly consider our society as it is, how we act and grow in our American way of life, I think work might become even more valued. People don't look for jobs that push us out of our jobs. As a person who had a great career in the employment industry as a 21-year-old, I know for a fact that no one anywhere looks for a job that will push them out of their job. If people have jobs that they are forced into, I think they hold onto them.
Working fewer hours will be a transformation in this hemisphere of the globe in a short time. Let's face it, this notion of work has become inextricably tied to the idea of time, never mind just being busy.
In my book, "Tracking Your Planet," I discuss what a world without jobs will look like. It will look bizarre. We'd have to switch to a much shorter calendar. A guy will need to purchase a time machine because back in our day, as the people in the book remind us, there were 11 days in a year, and the average length of a birthday party is typically around ten days. For nine days of them, our birthday is only the occasion for going to the bar for five hours. If I want the chance to come to visit my great-aunt when she's having her birthday party, then I have to go for three and a half days. That's six days for my birthday, eight days for mine, and then for her.
Coming to terms with this new year, I feel so sad for our planet because it seems there will be so many more ruined days than the one before. Sure, we will see all of those days get passed in no time. But coming to this realization, I feel like there will be so much more ruined than the days of my last generation. And it will take so much more time for the drastic changes to take place.
We have a much greater weight to bear on our planet because we are the central part of it, and there are so many people working on this planet. Most of us can stop working right now, but we don't do it because most have generations living around us. It's not just our children. It's for those who are generations of their own.
That is having been said; I think it's worth at least slowing down a bit. I think we are a lot more interested in what someone else is doing and that we can leave our mark on our work and our lives than I think we would be otherwise.
This past summer, I took a trip back to school. I had not had that opportunity in a while. I talked with many old friends who were back in their old stomping grounds at school and around the area. They were like new parents that we had not seen for a while. They are marveling at how technology has changed everything we do and even gives us a great deal of joy. They are on vacation right now, so I think it's a perfect time to set the time aside and spend the rest of this year working less and staying outdoors.
One year on, and I feel I have passed on the baton. There will be so many more days in my lifetime to learn more, and maybe, someday, we will learn a lot more.
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