November 17, 2002

Get Me Off This Rock!
   Anonymous

I admit, I've got a strange perspective, but what in the name of <insert favorite deity here> is going on in this world?!

Every morning I wake up, hop in the shower, hop out of the shower, and go to work. I wander around work generally beating people over the head for 8 or 10 hours. When I finally come home, I work more.

After a couple of hours of that, I read the news (CNN.com is my friend), and it's depressing as hell (don't get me wrong, I don't like Saddam either, but Bush is being a bit undiplomatic about the whole Iraq thing). I eat dinner, sit down and watch an hour or two worth of DVD's to unwind(TV bores me, now that most of ST:TNG is available on DVD). Then I go back to sleep.

Somewhere in there every day, I find about fifteen minutes to practice my music, but I really don't have enough time to take lessons. I spend my weekends taking care of the responsibilities (bills suck) that I didn't have time to deal with during the week.

This is my life.

When I was growing up, I didn't really think much about work (even though I was dead set on running my own business - go figure). I always envisioned having a family and a lot of fun. That's nowhere to be found, though, which is unfortunate -- because to me, that's what life should be about.

Everybody that I know is pretty much the same way. For the few that have families, they expend a HUGE amount of effort to make time for their families because they spend so much time working. There are many whose families suffer because they work so much, and that is a true tragedy.

Whatever happened to working in order to support your life and family, instead of living just so you could work? We're totally backwards in this society. For single people like me, it's hard to find the time to go out and meet people. For married folks, especially those with children, it's depressingly difficult to spend the time to keep the family cared for and happy.

Personally, I think we need to propose a new law that sets some limits. No longer should it be legal to work more than 8 hours per day, for one -- no employer should be able to force you to do so, and no employee should be allowed. Preferably, that limit would be 6 hours. The law should also require companies to offer a minimum of 6 weeks of vacation per year to full-time employees.

It would make life harder on the businesses, to be sure, but screw 'em. They're run by people, and happy people tend to be more productive from what I've seen.

Then we could get back to the only truly important thing in life: LIVING.

Published: November 17, 2002
Editor: stacy