The 9-5 – The Biggest Lie We Were Sold
We did not intend to end up where we are work wise. Fifteen years ago when David and I got together and started planning our lives, working from home, homeschooling, flexibility – none of those things were on our lists. We didn’t have the corporate life high up on the list either – I suppose we were someone in the middle. David working a 9-5 type job while I did reenter the “formal” work force at some point.
That was a long time ago. The world was very different. We were very different.
I suppose how we got here doesn’t really matter rather that we did and for that I am so grateful. What am I talking about you may be asking? Well the 9-5 daily grind that is office life. I don’t know exactly when in history the change happened – possibly the Industrial Revolution – but for decades we have been made to believe the main path to success is getting a 9-5 job, working all day, rushing home, making a meal, spending an hour or two with your kids/partner and enjoy 10 – 30 days off a year.
HOW and WHY did we do this? I can’t imagine a life where I am told I can only have 20 days off in a YEAR. It seems like such an unnatural thing to do.
When I do my early morning walks I watch the hundreds of cars racing past at 6h00 in the morning to get to their desks to sit and work in an office until its time to do it again in the evening. I did it for many years. David did it. I get it – not everyone has the luxury of our situation or a job that can be done from home or has the flexibility we do. I get it. We are extremely privileged to be in the situation we are in and I wouldn’t trade it for any amount of money in the world.
I wish it didn’t have to be this way though. I mean what kind of life are people leading where you see colleagues for 6/7 hours a day and your family for 2/3. How are so many of us bound by the rules of our company – you have to be here until this time, you can only have a holiday that’s this long, you can only be sick for this much time.
Do you ever wonder how we got here? How is this the life of millions of people?
Earning an income is essential for us all to survive. Not everyone can be entrepreneurs or work like we do but there has to be a better way? A way where people can enjoy the life they are working to pay for? There has to be more than the daily hustle?
It was a matter of not living lavishly but enjoying what you had, growing things with your hands, working hard, but not being tied to a nine-to-five job, and generally feeling that there’s more to life than money. John Sulston
I was born in the late ’80s. It seems like many people my age, and before, were led to believe that you’ve failed in life unless you work the Monday through Friday, 9-to-5 schedule. (Unless maybe you’re a doctor, nurse, police officer, or firefighter.) People want to eat dinner at a restaurant on Friday night, or go shopping on a Saturday afternoon…but the staff of those places are “losers” who don’t have “real jobs”.
I feel like you are literally speaking to me – I’ve been really struggling with my corporate job over the last year. I’m blessed to work from home (for the last 9 of my 27 year career), with my husband staying home and we homeschool. So technically we are all 4 “home” together, but I’m can’t be present with the family because I’m immersed in a career that has become quite difficult. I think about what my grandparents’ lives must have been like as farmers, working together for a common livelihood. And I wonder why it has to be this way – and does it actually have to be this way? My oldest child will leave home in a year as well, and that has me heartbroken. I want the time with him. I’m considering making a big change, but it is hard.