Emancipation

Today, sitting at work, I came to the delightful understanding that I am free.

One thing that did it was reading new material by The Chief Happiness Officer, who is a fierce proponent of keeping a work life in perspective, so as to pursue a family life, a spiritual life, and an artistic life.

My work life is in perspective, all right. It's a blur on my horizon.

Not that I have anything against work. Work is good. When you don't work, fun is just not as much of a thrill. Also, when you don't work, you have no money.

But I have to go ahead and count myself blessed that the work I'm doing doesn't feel like work. The hours I put in to 911 are mostly fun, and when they suck, well, I'll be going home in an hour and won't be back for days and days. I work at cleaning houses and office spaces and I like that work, especially with my iPod blaring and making the tiny little earbud speakers rattle. I work at trying to figure out eBay and Etsy and other entrepreneurial ideas, and some of it has been successful (selling my personal overstock of books on Amazon) and some of it has not (our rubber stamp line) but it's all been interesting.

And I have to pat my own back just a little bit, because if I didn't have the balls (ovaries?) to quit my Important Job in the first place, then I would still be in Employment Hell, burning up the Rolaids.

In fact the worst thing about this particular brand of happiness (have I annoyed you yet?) is that I want everyone to share it. I want us to all quit our jobs, share our cars, learn to take naps and have neighborhood barbeques. I want overtime to be outlawed. I want four-day work weeks, two-hour lunches, month-long vacations for all. And why? Because life is worth more than going back and forth to some job. Screw the job, that's what I say!

Unless you really love the job. Unless your work doesn't feel like work. Then you can keep it.