I'm self-employed. Yet, often, people will ask, "Do you have to work today?" Or, "Did you have to work over the weekend?" And I'm thinking have to? What is this "have to" stuff?
These questions are usually asked with sympathy, a la "you poor thing". Which results in me being thoroughly perplexed as to why they think a) it's pitiful to work; and b) it's pitiful that I "have to" work, even though I obviously don't "have to" do any particular thing at any particular time.
A decade ago, I was on the phone with a client, and we'd dropped into a casual conversation, and he was saying something about "working hard", as in that's the focus of a person who is doing something good and contributing to society. He said to me, "Don't you work hard?" I answered as expected: "Yes." But in the back of my mind, I was thinking that I really didn't feel that I worked hard most of the time. Certainly, things got stressful and the work sometimes seemed endless the first few months of the year -- my "busy season". But for the most part, however much work there might be to get done, I might just end up sitting on the couch and watching TV all day. Or writing fan fiction. Or running errands. Likewise, on a Sunday evening, I might get a whole lot of work done, just because I feel like working.
I used to feel somewhat guilty when I had a lot of work to do, and ended up not doing any of it that day or that weekend. Sometimes, I even felt hugely disappointed in myself. No more. Life goes so much easier when I do what I most feel like doing, feel the most inspired to do. Oh, there's occasional hard deadlines -- such as a payroll tax forms having to be submitted by a certain date -- but that's been smoothly integrated into my processes, so I rarely feel inclined to keep putting such off to the last minute.
Bottom line, the most amazing things can get done when one feels inspired, not that they "have to". What's more, when one is in a state of appreciation -- isn't it wonderful that people pay me to sort through their documents and put their numbers in the right categories? -- work is something to bless, rather than something to be annoyed by.
Shortly after I bought my first house, which was over 50yo, I had a lot of major expenses. After a fan friend moved in for the summer -- who could thereby keep my dogs company -- I decided to take on an evening part time job, for extra income to help pay my growing debt. It was at a bank processing center, where all the checks and receipts brought in from the banks was sorted and counted and run through those machines that stamped the back. So, I drove there after my regular job, and worked for four hours, three days a week. I was grateful to have a second job to earn extra money. The two supervisors in my department were nice people, but they would groan about all the extra work on a Friday or the last day of the month. I was a atheist at this time -- not into any kind of spirituality -- but their negativity about "all the work" on certain nights clashed with my cheerfulness at being able to earn extra money. I even pointed it out to them once -- like, isn't it great that we all have work that we can get paid for? They exchanged a glance of annoyance, unwilling to feel good about a long night. I quit after a couple of months.
People so often speak of "working hard", which sounds like a chore, something negative that nevertheless "has to" get done. Pushing against the natural flow of things, in that no matter how wonderful or good of a job one has, one is supposed to sigh and feel stressed and overwhelmed about doing that job -- otherwise, they're not "working hard". Which is so strange, because most people I know like their jobs -- a lot. Why attach a heavy-feeling label to it?
I don't think there's any virtue in working hard, but it's wonderful to make money from working easy.
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