Polluted Time
I discovered this term while reading Do Nothing.
periods or moments in which work pressures or commitments prevent someone from enjoying or otherwise making the most of their non-work time.
This is the bitter truth of working in the post Digital Revolution. We have tools that have made us more productive than at any other point in human history. Yet we’re working more hours than generations that came before us.
My biggest take aways from the book:
- The amount of hours people typically worked before the Industrial Revolution (it’s less, not more).
- Henry Ford implemented the 40 hour work week because he found it made his employees MORE productive. It had nothing to do with altruism.
- Trading hours for money is a relatively new concept. Before the Industrial Revolution this didn’t really exist. You provided products or services for a flat fee.
- What we’re doing now can’t last much longer.
I’m currently unemployed. I have no desire to get another job in Tech. I’m tired. So very, very, tired. I don’t know what I’m going to do next, I just know it won’t be sitting in front of a computer screen all day trading a set amount of hours for money.
My wife has been running her own business for over 20 years. She’s used to not having a set 9-5 schedule and used to getting paid for providing specific services to her clients. Recently she’s gone back to school to get her Masters degree. Her current practicum is in an office building downtown with 9-5 hours. She also works in her home office a few days out of the week. After only a few weeks into her practicum, she came out of her home office at the end of another work day and was exhausted. She looked at me and said, “how do people do this every day?”. She meant working a “regular” job in an office.
Keep in mind my wife is an incredibly hard worker. She build her business from nothing into the massive success it is today. Yet even for her, the change to working set hours at a desk all day, every day, was exhausting.
We can’t keep living like this. The line can’t constantly go up. Something has to give.
When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world.
Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money.
That's a very limited life.
Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again.
Steve Jobs
Edit: I get the irony of using a quote from Steve Jobs when arguing that we’re working too much. 😅 He was right about everything around us being a construct. It’s all been made up by people before us. We can remake it if we choose to.