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Time

Over dinner my friend Joshua murmurs something about time? He says I can’t really understand why time goes by so quickly. I wake up in the morning usually tired, next thing I know I am at work, get coffee, go into meetings, have conference calls, log on my computer, then head home. Sometimes, I decide to stop by the park and walk a bit before I get home, but these days it’s dark. I get home and realize I am hungry. I order some Chinese fried rice and maybe egg roll. I am a big fun of rice and enjoy Japanese and Thai food as well. I catch-up on the latest news, check my hotmail e-mails, jump in the shower and then get ready for bed. Sometimes I just lay in bed and wish there was someone to share my life with – maybe have them tell me life is not all about work?

It is morning again Joshua says, and I go through the same routine? Sometimes when I feel I have enough time before going to work, I just walk around my place looking for something, I don’t know what, but it is something I do. Lately, Joshua says, is this really worth it? This is how my life used to be several months ago. Well not too bad lately because I travel maybe 25% compared to the 99% while I was consulting. The nice part about my current experience he explains is I get to sleep in my own bed. However my routine seems the same.

So what does time have to do with all this I ask? He explains, well I don’t find the time to do the things I enjoy anymore. It’s all work, my boss sends me e-mails at home, I bring work home, clients expect responses when they send e-mails, worst of all I have a blackberry. I guess the goal is to make me available 24/7 and he looks strangely at me. You might say it’s the field I work in? I look at him and say, not necessarily.

I explain to him what one of my mentors once told me, you can go with the flow or re-define expectations prior to getting into a job. For example my mentor told his last employer during negotiations, “I have a family and expect to be home by latest 6:00 p.m., I don’t work from home, take phone calls and don’t work on the weekends, is this acceptable? His new employer said he appreciated his honesty and hired him. I guess we must believe there are employers who respect out principles.

Joshua looks at me and says are you for real your mentor did that? I said yes, try it? I guess the question is how many of us honestly say what we truly think works for our lifestyle? I would think Joshua is not the only person who does ask if we live in a world where we should be accepting of all society requires of us because of monetary gain? What about the capitalist mentality that has gone wrong? Or what drives us to continue to work so much that we rarely achieve the American Dream? What is this dream? Material wealth or material fulfillment? What is it? Joshua looks at me and says it has become too complicated to define.