The polarity of “The Grind” and Harmony | Stream of Consciousness #8
Don’t you love to scroll/go through your follows stories and see both posts about how much “The Grind” is all that matters and it’s the measure of “how successful you are”, and on the other end, how much “The Grind” is actually not sustainable and a waste of Life?
Gotta love social media!
I tend to be on the latter group, to be quite frank. After starting my “career”, 5 years ago, I can confidently say that overworking myself especially to profit someone else is not worth the mental strain. And the potential traumas?
No ma’am, I’ll pass!
Hell, that’s one of the reasons I do not to do any kind of coding outside of work, even though I know I am able to create systems and it would even help me further my “craft”.
The thing is all my employers somehow are able to profit from my fondamental flaw:
I don’t want to fail.
And they aim everything on this single point to extract every ounce of work of me. Since I don’t want to fail at anything, I’ll give my absolute best, even if it means overworking myself to exhaustion.
Are they at fault? Although, my ego wants to say “yes, they are my “superiors” they should understand that what they’re asking is too much”, the fault is mainly mine, since I’ve not learnt to set proper boundaries. Not to mention, with the pandemic, this issue became very prominent, because I am basically my own boss, and my actual boss’s are my “clients” and I have to deliver the things that are requested by them. Don’t get me wrong, not having to go to the office is a blessing for me, the mister introvert, and I’d like to keep it that way even after the pandemic calms down a little. I have to separate my work life and my personal life, that’s what I really need to learn, for my own sanity.
Back to the topic, that was quite a tangent, I had to get out of my chest
“The Grind” vs “The Life”
I would advocate for equilibrium. Don’t let external factors get in your way. You have to ask yourself: do have the strength to push and go the extra mile? Is it worth it? Why are you pushing so hard?
Sometimes you’ll go the extra mile, sometimes you won’t and you’ll have to stop and breathe, spend time recharging, hopefully soon, socialise with those who matter to you, take some time off, even quit because “The Grind” isn’t providing you anything besides misery. Let’s stop shaming failure, shall we?
That sounds quite simple at first glance, however, the middle ground is never easy to achieve. Usually, it’s quite the opposite.
Harmony is never easy when Entropy is the natural order. It’s not something that can be taught, it’s something that we all must find for ourselves. Even this middle ground may be quite different from someone else and it’s completely okay. We’re all different and that what makes the World interesting and this Life worth living.
Comparisons here should only serve as a potential experience i.e. another way to do thing, which may be better or worst than what you already had achieved previously.
We all know our lifespan is relatively limited and some of us will spend all their life trying to find that middle ground. What I have to say is there’re no universal truths so don’t bother too much, find what’s best for the moment, then adapt. Remember:
“ipse se nihil scire id unum sciat”
Just remember, try to make it as enjoyable as possible.
(Don’t be like me 😬)
Here is another stream of consciousness, please let me know what you think and tell me what is also going on in your life, so it might also help you process. 🙏🏼
