Burnt out

I've been away from blogging for a few days.  Okay, more like a couple weeks.  But I am not without reason.  This time of year always seems to have a rush, rush feel to it, and this also seems to be the time of year when things are especially busy with work, life, everything in general.  Because of this and more, I have had neither the time nor the energy to post. 

Do you know what that was?  That was a paragraph of vague and not entirely true excuses.  Yes, I have been busier than usual.  Yes, I am also sick.  But there have been moments over the past couple weeks when I could easily have logged in and penned a fascinating and insightful blog post.  There were hours during my evening at home when I could have torn myself away from the TV and spent some time exercising the keys on my laptop.  

But here's a statement that is entirely true.  I'm burnt out.  I know, I know, who isn't, right?  But I can feel myself starting to go under a little at a time, more and more each day.  I'm stir crazy in my surroundings and I just want to run away.  My lack of motivation is completely apparent (at least it is to me), and I feel like week in and week out all I am doing is counting the days and counting the hours until the weekend.  Sitting here at my desk it's all I can do to make it through this blog post.....a post which obviously has no direction whatsoever. 

Direction.  Is that what is missing from my life right now?  Am I restless and unmotivated because I am off track, wandering aimlessly, looking to be set right?

Or am I just looking for a different road....a more exciting one? 

I'm holding fast to the notion that once I kick this cold and actually have some energy things will start to look up.  It's so much easier to be positive and optimistic when you aren't exhausted and feeling like crap. 

Do you want to know what your co-workers get paid?

Our perception of wealth experiences an evolution over time.  When we are little kids we are happy just to have enough money for a soda or a bag of chips from the vending machine.  As a teenager having enough money to go to a movie and maybe a fast food restaurant is sufficient.  Eventually we try to earn enough money so we can buy our own clothes and entertainment items, maybe if we're lucky our own car.  Then we upgrade by quite a bit and start saving for a house, kids, all those grown up things that we knew nothing about when we were younger....especially how expensive they all were. 

In each stage of our life we are usually adjusting our perception of what makes someone wealthy and how much money is enough to get by.  Some don't want to settle with just getting by, as they push and push to break into the upper barriers of the pay scale, while others are fine toiling away for what could be considered mediocre compensation. 

Money is such a funny issue.  And it's a sensitive one.  Whether it be between spouses, friends, family, money does change things and is usually one of those off-limits conversation items right up there next to politics and religion.

What makes money so funny?  It's the way it can skew our attitude about another person.  Most of us out there do not believe for a second that we are getting paid enough for what we do.  Those of us that do agree with our compensation maybe wish we could find a position with more prestige and responsibility so the monthly check will in fact be significantly higher.  

In our work lives there is usually a hierarchy of authority, a chain of command if you will.  The people at the top get paid the most, while the ones at the bottom are paid the least.  Pretty standard.  But how much are those people at the top really getting paid?  And if you are one of the poor souls in the bottom tier, do you really want to know how much more your colleagues are making than you?

If you said yes, then I urge you to reconsider.  Because once you satisfy your curiosity and know exactly how much more others are getting paid, it's going to be very hard to look at them the same again.  The next time you find yourself hating your job, or frustrated with someone at work, you will inevitably come back to the subject of money and that will fuel your fire even more.  Once you have that dollar figure in your head it becomes very hard to forget, and whether you mean to or not you run the risk of always resenting this fact. 

Some might be reading this and thinking what a shallow, awful thing it is to judge someone by how much they earn.  I agree, it is shallow, but it is also commonplace.  We know we shouldn't do it, we know it isn't right, and yet we just can't help ourselves.  As proper and polite as we try to be sometimes our baser tendencies get the better of us.  I think it's quite common to turn to the deserving argument.  For instance, so and so doesn't deserve a large salary because they don't even do any work.  It isn't fair that so and so makes so much more than us, because WE do all the work.  Does this ring a bell with anyone out there?  It's probably the most standard complaint about differentiating salaries, and true or not, we would love to trade places with so and so because we perceive that they don't have to do a single thing as far as actual work goes, plus it comes with a huge paycheck. 

Perception is everything. 

The thing is, we have to work with our co-workers on a daily basis.  It's essential to build good working relationships in order for everyone to experience success, and it's terribly difficult to do that if you have money on the mind.  We're not stupid, we realize our bosses make more than us.  But do we really need to know how much more?  Honestly, why would we even want to?  Aside from the fact that knowing could prove to be overly depressing, it doesn't do us any favors when trying to establish a strong work relationship.  Some will say to just forget about it, push it to the back of your mind.  Okay, yes, that's exactly what we should do.....but how easy is that really?  

Maybe I'm reading too much into this (wouldn't be the first time), but I truly think the income of our co-workers is something best left in the dark.  What you don't know can't hurt you.

Facebook Fast conclusion

 

Today was the final day of the Facebook fast.  And surprisingly enough, it was the easiest day out of the entire week.  I realize I didn't post yesterday but for the most part I made it through my Thursday with very limited Facebook withdrawals.  In fact, I don't even recollect wanting to log into the site.  In my mind that's a huge accomplishment. 

Today has been amazingly smooth sailing.  Maybe because it's Friday and I'm filled with cheerful thoughts of the weekend ahead, or maybe because I have finally trained myself to get through the day without wasting time on Facebook, who really knows.  Whatever the reason may be I am feeling much more optimistic about my Facebook-free life, so much so that I might just continue to abstain in the coming days ahead. 

I still like Facebook, and I will still argue that it's an incredible medium for communication, but I can't deny the fact that the site is a HUGE time vampire.  I don't even want to think about all the hours I would waste away on that site in a given week, but when I would reflect on it I truly felt depressed.  So for me, this little experiment was more than necessary not only to quell my own personal curiosity of what a week without Facebook would be like, but also to help me just feel better, happier overall. 

Boy, for a week of no Facebook I sure have done a lot of writing about it!  While I can't say that I will never log into the site again, I have a feeling that in the future I will be much less inclined to fill my empty hours with a Facebook fix.  In a way it's quite a liberating feeling.  Now I'm off to celebrate my new-found independence!