The Most Important Lesson of 2020
We all want to put 2020 far behind us. Can I be honest? I don’t.
COVID has been terrible, but it’s also been a massive eye-opener. For an event to hit pause on our entire way of living was inconceivable 1 year ago. As the economic machine ground to a halt people came to a realisation — a lesson I’m worried we’re already forgetting.
We’re giving away far too much of our lives for money.
A glimpse of a different life
Do you remember how you felt at the start of lockdown? I do. I recall waking up one sunny morning with one question on my mind:
What the bloody hell do I do now?
I, like most of us, was unable to work. And I, like most of us, didn’t have a clue what to do.
It was a strange feeling not waking up at 7 AM and gulping down a coffee before my commute, with no dreaded clients or unwelcome deadlines on my mind. My inbox went into shock; confused by the lack of emails demanding my attention.
It should’ve been a happy feeling, but I felt frightened — not about being unable to work, I took to that better than a fly to shit.
What’s concerning is how much of a void had appeared when I wasn’t working. How much of my time, actions and thoughts were consumed by my job.
It was frightening because I didn’t even realise it had happened.
Sure, we all know we are far too busy. We joke about being stressed or needing a holiday, but when did it become normal to live for work? I don’t remember signing a contract giving away my time, energy and happiness for a number in my bank account. And yet somewhere down the line it happened.
The problem with having time off to think is you actually start to think. And I’m not talking about a quick visit to the ‘ what am I doing with my life’ store your brain goes to in between Youtube videos, but proper reflection about your values and purpose.
Why is this an issue? Well, it leads to uncomfortable questions.
Have we all too easily accepted trading most of our lives for money? Do we value a number in our bank account more than our peace of mind?
COVID forced a glimpse of a different reality. One where you’re not sprinting to keep up with the Joneses. A time where you can prioritise yourself more, and your income less.
The new normal
Ah normality. We’re all looking forward to it. We can’t wait to sip on a pint and enjoy a pub meal, thinking back to when masks were reserved for dentists and shaking hands not a mortal sin.
But should we be so quick to jump at the life we had before?
When it comes to memory and happiness, our brains like to ‘fill in the gaps’. We picture being without a virus, and associate that with good times. We make this judgement from the present, where we are sick and tired of hearing about COVID.
Our current thoughts heavily influence our future wants. And with so much noise about the pandemic, we fail to give much consideration to anything except COVID when we picture the future. We’re all too eager to get back to normal.
But as the economy restarts, we risk forgetting the feeling of having proper time to ourselves; perhaps we already have. I know as I’ve gone back to work, I find myself in an all too familiar role, like slipping into an old pair of shoes.
The hobbies and passions we had the time to pursue during the summer are pushed aside to make room for more work. Money moves up the totem pole of priorities, but at what cost?
We shouldn’t be striving to go back to normal, we should be using 2020 to redefine what normal is. Life has other things to offer other than money, and we owe it to ourselves to experience it fully.
Failing to do so will be one of our biggest regrets.
Time and death
Bronnie Ware, a palliative carer, spent her career around the dying. She interviewed thousands of people, and summarised her findings in The Top Five Regrets of the Dying:
Except 3, these points relate to work and the time we have available. When we work all the time, we can’t follow our passions to their potential, and we struggle to be happy in the day-to-day.
These regrets are nothing new. Not to belittle Ware’s book, but you and I could’ve guessed this list and saved her the time. So why do we think we’re any different? We know these regrets, yet commit to spending the next 40 years with earning as our top priority.
This is because we’re terrible at judging time. If I asked you to imagine yourself in a year, and then in 10, the image will be similar. You won’t add on the extra pounds nor the grey hairs. But you’d have no problem comparing a stroll to the shop vs a hike up Everest.
When we imagine the physical, we can picture and compare with reasonable accuracy. But when it comes to time we grossly overestimate how much we have, spending it quicker than horny old men at a strip club.
We would do well to listen to the words of the dying, because only when time has run out can you truly appreciate its value. It is a finite resource we must use well to get the most from life.
So, where the hell does it all go?
Our time is running out
Believe it or not, I enjoy work. I don’t want us to quit our jobs and play the ukulele around the fireplace. We need money to survive, and having a rewarding career adds incredible value to life.
My problem is a simple maths one. Work is, by far, the biggest expenditure of time. If you have any hopes of doing something significant outside of it, you must appreciate how little time you have available.
Consider the 40-hour work week:
Half of our waking time is getting to work, working, or sorting out work. This might feel acceptable, after all — money buys freedom. And we certainly don’t throw it at every shiny object, right?
But it doesn’t stop at half our time.
How often do you think about work outside of it? Do you find yourself sitting with your family but your mind is still at the office? How many restless nights have you had in your career?
All it takes is one rogue email on a Saturday morning to ruin an entire weekend.
Work is tiring, even for those who have a genuine passion for what they do. Stress accumulates and fatigue sets in. The best intentions to focus on oneself in the time outside work often ends up being able to barely focus on the TV.
Let’s not forget the necessities such as shopping, cleaning, cooking, eating and exercising. Our free time disappears quicker than a donut at a police station, and we’re expected to divide the crumbs between hobbies, friends, family, relaxing and finding purpose.
Best of luck.
What can we do?
Short of winning the lottery, you and I will still be going into work this week and for many to come. Being angry at the amount of time it consumes will get us nowhere. Instead, we should strive to do 3 things:
- Value our time
- View time off from work as time on for life
- Find purpose in our profession
If time is money, we need to start acting like our hourly rate is more than the cost of a burger and chips. Considering how little free time we truly have we need to make sure we protect and use it wisely.
This means being disciplined with our time and commitments, making sure we have the hours in the week to focus on tasks less urgent but more important to our development.
Over 100 years ago Bennett wrote in How to Live on 24 hours a Day that the attitude of viewing the hours we spend at work as ‘the day’ and the morning and evenings as just the bits before and after is ‘utterly illogical and unhealthy’.
This is still true now, except technology gives the illusion of productivity. If we fill our time off work with mindless scrolling and shallow, unimportant tasks, then we progress no further. We are passive participators in our own story. The time you have off from your job is the time you have on for yourself.
Our time at work must provide meaning. If we are going to spend a huge chunk of our life doing something, it should be enjoyable and add value to our lives. It is unacceptable to let yourself stay in a job long term if you don’t believe in it.
The internet is gives the chance to learn any skill and be rewarded for building a career around your passion and interests. But if you want this, you have to make sure you’re dedicating enough time towards it. This may mean making difficult decisions as you focus on the long term.
A word of caution and frogs
It’s hard to keep yourself as the top priority when money makes the world go round. Economies thrive on the idea happiness is found in paychecks, and we all encourage it because we have been fed the same attitude since we were kids. Going against the grain and stepping outside the rat race isn’t easy.
2021 will be no different. In fact, we will face tougher challenges. Growing and finding purpose might be important to us, but the movement of money is the only important thing to the economy.
Governments will want their loans back and businesses need us to start spending. Your dream of living a great life will not add up to the dream the economy is selling. Commercialism will be forced down our throats, and unfortunately people will happily swallow it.
So where do frogs come into it?
If you put a frog in boiling water it jumps out. One toe, or whatever the frog equivalent is, is enough for it to realise staying in the water is a terrible idea.
But if you put a frog in cold water and increase the heat, it doesn’t notice it’s boiling alive. Now, I’m not sure if this parable is true and I have no intention of finding out, but the lesson is worth noting.
We weren’t born believing money and status is the measure of a good life. We pick up this attitude as we go about our life. As we age, we slowly trade away our time and happiness, and it feels acceptable as this transition is gradual.
But if you put someone unexposed to western culture into a week of our lives, they would spend their first paycheck on a one-way flight the hell away from us. That is, if they didn’t already take out the 2-year finance deal on a BMW.
We’re back in the water now, and the temperature is rising. Work is getting busier; lifestyles are inflating, and so are our stress levels. We need to make sure we don’t reach boiling point again — we won’t have many opportunities to take a pause on capitalism again.
Will you live for money?
My biggest fear is you and I find ourselves running side-by-side on the hedonic hamster wheel in the near future and not even realise we had somehow slipped back into old habits and familiar pursuits.
This isn’t an antithesis for success and ambition. This is a plea to use the time you had this year to decide what a successful life means to you. The pursuit of money for money alone is a shallow way to live when you consider what else is on offer from life.
As we descend back into chaos and the blur of commercialism, keep yourself at the forefront of your mind. Focus on your happiness and your passions. Let yourself work on what you love, not solely on your bank balance.
Keep control of your time and priorities. When you’re old and grey, you can look back knowing you lived for yourself.
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