A Handbrake Tutorial

Blessed are the ones that do what they love and love what they do, because they shall inherit the kingdom of ideal employees on earth. A small and exclusive group, mostly gathering artists and mechanics, because they seem to be the only ones really enjoying their jobs, or should I say their ways of earning a living.

Most of us, the mortals of the 9-5, go to work pretty much wearing a grey mask on our face everyday, smile when the situation asks for one, and our sole expectations from that job are a paycheck and a spot to fill, with eight hours of our lives, day after day, year after year. Pretty much my experience with being an employee for more than a decade. That's how much I achieved by now. Probably that's why I avoid getting a regular job any time soon.

Not that all of them suck, but most do, and what do you do if you don't have options. Well, you bake your cake the best way, using the most appealing ingredients. One thing that I learned in my short history as a working man in this society, is that driving with the handbrake on makes your driving experience worse and ages faster your vehicle, which in our case will be mental and physical health. By handbrake I refer to that meah attitude that quite many embrace when go to work.

The meah attitude is what makes us glancing at the clock every five minutes, looking at the huge pile of tasks that are waiting to be solved, seeing the bad and the worse in every possible boss and colleague on the planet, and pretty much the same attitude can drain every drop of energy out of one man's soul and body in just eight hours. Some called these wives, but they're misogynists. Some strong liquor we pour into our glasses pretty much every day, I have to say.

I remember when I was living in Germany, and working as a postman, that at some point, in my first weeks, I almost cried of exhaustion, both physical and mental, due to the high amount of work. Well, I might gone too far with the crying, but yeah, it was a very unpleasant feeling and situation to be in. I did learned some valuable lesson from the days back then.

I learned that I shouldn't carry double the amount of what needed to be carried in one day and let me explain a bit about what I mean... Accomplishing heavy tasks, while looking back at the same time to see what's left, and checking up your watch or smartphone clock every ten minutes, won't do the work for you. On the contrary, it will make you feel like you are working twice as needed, feeling frustrated and incapable, and that's exactly what I was doing. Postal services being just one example.

Whenever I took every task by the horns, left the clock and the other tasks back, waiting for me, and done my best to do it the best I could and fastest possible, I noticed that not only was I working faster, more efficient and feeling less tired, but I also enjoyed what I was doing. Yes, sometimes you need to step back and look at the whole stack, to see where you at, but once you weighed all in, and got your plan, it's time for the one on one game.

I don't want to sound like I'm some sort of a personal development guru, or anything else of the kind, because I'm not, but when you embrace the right attitude, even the most difficult task that you have is doable, and pretty much every job in the world passes from meah land to yeah land. Being present and fully aware on any task, as much as possible, because only Buddha can be always fully present, will change the feeling of working and the results, way more than we can imagine.

"Getting shit done" can be consuming when we drive with the handbrake on, and many of us do that, but releasing it and driving smooth can be done and it's also advisable. It just requires a bit of attention and awareness and the intention to make it a habit. Habits make us humans, and it's not supposed for all of them to be bad. Some can be good, and working with our full attention and awareness can make a a good habit, and will probably make 9-5 bearable... again. Work wasn't that demanding, in the good old days, even for the ones building sky scrapers, although some died by doing that.

It's our collective mind that glued spikes to it, and made it painful. Now one could say that he has an awful boss and that the amount of work is too much to handle, even for Buddha, and all I bothered to write in this post is garbage, and I agree with you. It's probably garbage, but have you thought on quitting? Even trees get to change places once in a while, so why not humans? In my case, I don't have any goals for the near future in getting a day job, but I might need to do that at some point, and I will have to pin this post somewhere between my eyes, so I can read it before signing a contract... again.

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Thanks for attention,
Adrian