Work or Life?

There was a time when the idea of work or going to work was linked in my mind with some sort of suffering or at least sacrifice. It was an inevitable duty I had in order to be a productive member of family and society. The main reason for going to work was the financial incentive in the following month. The surroundings I found myself in were luckily pleasant, and I just went with the flow. If I liked the co-workers, I could do whatever needed to be done.

I have now been working for twenty-five years — that’s a quarter of a decade and more than half my life. When I say ‘work’ I mean having a paid job: in a local bar, as an au-pair, teaching, being an office manager or consultant, or — the best job I ever had — staff member/crew trainer at MacDonald’s. It was the most physically demanding, but the most socially rewarding. Whatever may be the rumors, the crew we had at the first MacDonald’s restaurant in my country has always made me respect that establishment. The standards, the training, the checklists, the consistency and transparency of the reward system — all of these influenced my attitude towards any position and instilled in me a kind of work ethics I rarely found in co-workers after I left. The parties after the evening shift and the never-ending toiling night shifts: the warmest undertone of my student days. Perhaps because we were all in our early twenties, perhaps because the restaurant had opened a year prior, perhaps because the aftermath of the war in the country injected some vitality fuel in our veins and we were hopeful for new beginnings, open for new experiences, ready to work hard and play hard. It didn’t matter that we were grilling hamburgers or mixing milkshakes, the management somehow made it all easy and the vocabulary they were trained to use motivated us to meet the expected standards. I learned how to clean professionally and systematically, I learned how to schedule tasks and break them down in steps, I learned how to communicate respectfully with co-workers, even if we didn’t get along. Most importantly, I learned how to come to work well ahead the time to get ready for the shift. Regardless of the intangible perks, it was still a job where I was looking forward to the clock-out time.

I consider myself a lucky one because I had jobs that I enjoyed, at least in one aspect. Ironically, the least enjoyable job gave me the highest salary and benefits. One job gave me an excellent network, but demanded about 10 hours of work every day. One job gave me a lot of freedom and control of decision-making, but a lot of instability and unpredictability. I must have had at least fifteen different jobs or stints throughout these twenty-five years. I do believe it is good to stick with the same employer for at least two years, and I was a firm believer that a position should be changed every five years — otherwise you get stuck in a rut and your mental skills are no longer challenged.

Being in the best work situation at the moment makes me doubt that belief. Why should I change something if I enjoy doing it? It doesn’t bring me harm, in fact, I am upgrading my skills every year. What’s even better is that I finally have the time to have a second and third job: my work has become quite fluid. With my creativity finally plugged in the clear vision socket, I am able to earn by doing what I’ve always enjoyed. The ‘regular job’ paid for the certifications so I can finally call myself a yoga teacher and a massage therapist, even though I had felt like that for a long time before I passed the exams. I came back to teaching as my ‘first job’, and I found a passion in EdTech: my office management skills translated very well in the classroom, and I quickly recognized the need to teach those skills to my colleagues.

I don’t consider my work to be my life, but an expression of my interests. My work does not define me, my interests defined my work. My interests in well-being and understanding how the body works, especially in relation to changing itself for the better, the relationship of mind and body, the way the immaterial affects the material realm — I keep exploring all of these in my daily work. How can I teach better? What’s good for this person? Should that person benefit from this move, exercise, therapy?

As soon as I changed my attitude towards work from: ‘What do I want to work?’ to ‘What am I interested in?’, my work-life balance has blended into a harmonious life of curiosity, creativity and contentment. There are no more sleepy mornings, tired evenings or grumpy Mondays. I don’t have the need for the weekend in order to unwind. Everything I do throughout the day brings me to a zen-like state because I am satisfying my interests, helping others improve, and getting a financial compensation for a dessert. As a result, I would like to work more, and my well of ideas is infinitely deep, but I only have twenty-four hours in a day, and a body that needs rest and refueling. Luckily, I have my MacDonald’s organizing skills to help me do as many tasks as possible to enjoy my work i.e. life.