Today is one of those perfect pre-Autumn days that make you wonder why anyone would ever want to live anywhere other than New York. Unfortunately, these only come about 5 days a year, but usually they coincide with signing leases or renewing job contracts.
Starting today, we go back to working 9 to 5 (during the summer, we work 9 to 4; it's pretty sweet). During the summer we also can wear whatever we want, and now we have to go back to making some effort to look "professional." Also, I now have about two days to do all the work I put off doing all summer.
In my current job, I'm not at all micromanaged, which is both good and bad. I have this unfortunate tendancy to put everything off until the last minute, and then spend a week or so kicking myself for spending the past two months taking Cosmo surveys online when I should have been working. But at least I know the answer to the question, "How Foxy Do You Feel?" Which must count for something. Self-knowledge, , after all, is the first step in the path to enlightenment. Or, What if The Buddha Had a Desk Job With an Internet Connection?
Not long ago I came across an idea that absolutely changed the way I look at the Universe. The idea is: we are inherently problem-solving creatures. So, when things get too "easy," even if that is what we ostensibly want, we manufacture difficulties and problems in order to have something to thing about.
In other words, we are, simultaneously the scientist and the laboratory rat. We make the maze, and then run around in it.
For instance, my job is rather easy. It has hard moments, but on the whole it's not that challenging and even pleasant at times, as it involves lots of perks like occasional wine with lunch from the boss's home in France. However, I do weird things like putting off some task that's actually very easy, like writing a brief report for a foundation (something I could do in my sleep). However, I put it off and put it off and worry and give myself an ulcer. This weekend, for instance, I had two days off and spent the entire time feeling guilty and thinking about work-related things I could have been doing.
The unfortunate work ethic rears its head in the form of guilt, but unfortunately this doesn't really translate into actually working too much. It's as if my French ancestors (who are in the minority in the gene pool) gave me the laziness gene, but it's in constant conflict with the "it's important to be miserable and work hard your entire life so you may or may not go to an extremely boring version Heaven" gene from the Scots.
Even though I was raised without any form of religion, there is something downright viral about the whole Presbyterian/Calvinist idea that enjoying life is somehow wrong. And yet, argyle socks and navy-blue belts with little pink whales on them are somehow right. It's just messed up.
Starting today, we go back to working 9 to 5 (during the summer, we work 9 to 4; it's pretty sweet). During the summer we also can wear whatever we want, and now we have to go back to making some effort to look "professional." Also, I now have about two days to do all the work I put off doing all summer.
In my current job, I'm not at all micromanaged, which is both good and bad. I have this unfortunate tendancy to put everything off until the last minute, and then spend a week or so kicking myself for spending the past two months taking Cosmo surveys online when I should have been working. But at least I know the answer to the question, "How Foxy Do You Feel?" Which must count for something. Self-knowledge, , after all, is the first step in the path to enlightenment. Or, What if The Buddha Had a Desk Job With an Internet Connection?
Not long ago I came across an idea that absolutely changed the way I look at the Universe. The idea is: we are inherently problem-solving creatures. So, when things get too "easy," even if that is what we ostensibly want, we manufacture difficulties and problems in order to have something to thing about.
In other words, we are, simultaneously the scientist and the laboratory rat. We make the maze, and then run around in it.
For instance, my job is rather easy. It has hard moments, but on the whole it's not that challenging and even pleasant at times, as it involves lots of perks like occasional wine with lunch from the boss's home in France. However, I do weird things like putting off some task that's actually very easy, like writing a brief report for a foundation (something I could do in my sleep). However, I put it off and put it off and worry and give myself an ulcer. This weekend, for instance, I had two days off and spent the entire time feeling guilty and thinking about work-related things I could have been doing.
The unfortunate work ethic rears its head in the form of guilt, but unfortunately this doesn't really translate into actually working too much. It's as if my French ancestors (who are in the minority in the gene pool) gave me the laziness gene, but it's in constant conflict with the "it's important to be miserable and work hard your entire life so you may or may not go to an extremely boring version Heaven" gene from the Scots.
Even though I was raised without any form of religion, there is something downright viral about the whole Presbyterian/Calvinist idea that enjoying life is somehow wrong. And yet, argyle socks and navy-blue belts with little pink whales on them are somehow right. It's just messed up.
posted by Marguerite at 8:31 AM
2 Comments:
I know what you mean. I do nothing all day long and put things off until at night I can't sleep feeling guilty for not doing anything all day and then the next day, I do the same thing.
That's what these mega-churches have all wrong. They try to synch up the bloated baby boomer lifestyle with the teachings of Jesus and cohorts that was refracted through Calvinism's not-so-gentle ways that were able to cross the big pond from Europe (carving life out of a woods that a bird could go branch to branch across the whole country is no picnic) with the expected Wal-Mart-style results, as in we're giving all these people jobs! So what if they're shitty jobs!
My wife, bless her, is on waivers from a fundamentalist baptist rearing, and I know enough to demand when Christ comes back into her life that it's Presbyterian or HELLFIRE for me (and the goddamn children), as it's the only denomination I can stand to go near.
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