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| eKibitz » Inspiration Self-Help » Daily-Grind Surving Boredom at Work and Home |  |
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By: Deborah D. Gillespie An overwhelming majority of us find it extremely difficult to get through life when we are faced with the monotony and dull grind of its daily routines. It can seem as if we spend the entire day working and wasting away for no other reason than to be able to earn enough to cover our food and shelter expenses so that we are able to return to work tomorrow for more of the same. One can only go through this boring routine for so long before their outlook on life becomes dangerously hopeless!
The Puritans in the 16th and 17th centuries advocated strict religious disciplines that prevented any type of enjoyment in life. This caused the majority of them to see nothing but repression and harsh duty. However, they were no more right than the person who, today, lives only for frivolous amusements. Life itself is too important a thing to always be seen as trivial and lived lightly. Avoiding anything that may appear too difficult to cope with for the moment, or too mundane to be enjoyed, only serves to create huge limitations and large walls that prevent us from reaching our full potential in the areas of both happiness and success. At the same time, we cannot allow the very important purpose of life itself to be lost by robbing our families or ourselves of the enjoyment of living or by allowing it to be lived solely in a dull, mundane, mechanical fashion. Many would argue, in an effort to give you comfort, that the fruits of your labor will come in time. That the work you are doing now is sure to bring you satisfaction later in life or after you reach the heavenly afterlife. Others would argue that you should find joy in the simple knowledge that you are working at all; that the mundane tasks which make up the daily grind are in fact "just life" and that you should be happy that you are capable of performing those tasks. They will also try to point out the people in other walks of life or in other countries that have it far worse than you do. This argument of comfort almost seems to be an effort to provide you some way of seeing your existing success as the end goal rather than just the beginning of your far greater potential. The problem is, you are not done. This is not where you want to stop. The mere fact that you are not happy about your current lifestyle proves that you have not yet found success. And for most of us, the "fruits of our labor" are too far off. The hope for a good retirement or a heavenly afterlife does not provide enough comfort to get us through today, or the realization that we will have to relive today tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. We need something now. We need something easily obtainable. And the truth of the matter is that there is no fruit to be gained at all from a lifestyle that crushes and enslaves our very existence. A person is only useful to himself and others if he is happy. Without happiness the person becomes more of a burden to those around him, and to himself, than his work is worth. If the person is not happy, he spreads grief, and this, in and of itself, is unhealthy and will certainly grow into a much greater affliction, ending in some sort of trauma to the unit as a whole. With the realization that without happiness we are not valuable, we must be able to find a healthy proportion of work and relief. But where is the happy mix of duty and delight that allows life to not only be endured but also useful, successful, and enjoyable?
A person with a soul that is capable of generating refreshing visions and deep rooted dreams can be tied down to a desk or a machine and still remain a great and joyous soul that continues to generate visions and dreams throughout each day of life. On the contrary, if you place a senseless person, who has no dream or vision of the future, in a fine gallery of the world's greatest treasures of art, beauty, and imagination, he will still think of nothing more than wanting to watch a football game and drink a beer.... just like he did the week before last, and the week before that. To have a successful life, we must still perform the tasks that make up our "daily grind", but we can do them without allowing them to crush us so long as we do not lose sight of our fondest memories, our most cherished desires, or our greatest of thoughts, dreams, and visions and as long as we do not allow the mundane tasks to define the boundaries of our life. It is the ability to hold these eternal and internal riches dear, while not allowing the routine procedures of life itself to bind or control us, that boosts any life up and makes it worthy of even greater things to come. We can maintain our dreams, aspirations, and visions of the future and continue to increase the number of happy memories and good thoughts by ensuring we continue to take time out to enjoy music, beauty in art and nature, literature, fun with the family, and time alone to consider and acknowledge our achievements and future goals. These things are the fuel for your soul. Remembering the importance of preserving non-working moments for something enjoyable with your friends, loved ones, and yourself is precisely how you will keep the stockpile of inner life and strengths that, in and of themselves, create the sacred resources you need to draw upon often so that you can make it through many days in a row of the most difficult and mind-numbing of routines. Weekends, holidays, vacations, and other time you are granted to take off of work or are otherwise released from the daily grind, are times to replenish the soul. Do not waste them simply lying around awaiting for the alarm clock's command for you to begin the new week of routines. At best, wasting this time away with laziness is admittance that you have given up on life itself, that you are content with your current situation, and that the success you have reached at this very moment is the most you will succeed in your lifetime. At worst, it will lead you into a state of despair and quite literally rip your current life to shreds leaving you or your family grasping at anything that may help them to feel even remotely alive again. A wise and successful person, completes his daily routines for which structure, cleanliness, and financial success are gained, by using every possible opportunity to refresh his soul; he drinks from the spring of life; and he seeks to commune with every other great soul around him during every possible moment that is made available for him to do so. He does not slumber away his moments of freedom, instead he dreams about them, plans for them with his family and friends, and fills his sacred resources to the brim by making the most of every single one of them. The person with the wisdom to utilize his free time effectively and joyfully, uses his time spent in the daily grind as time to dream, envision, and plan for the next moment of freedom and to remember fondly the joys of the last one. By having something new as often as possible to look back upon and by consistently looking forward to and creating more new events in your life, the daily grind becomes not only bearable but more productive, healthy, and enjoyable. In the beginning you may have to work and consciously decide that you will force yourself to get out and do something during your time off (ensuring that it is within your budget), but in no time at all you will see the benefits of this action and doing so will become second-nature. Your life will regain meaning, substance, and joy.
Last Modified: July 31st, 2006
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