I just finished reading The Lazy Person's Guide to Success by Ernie J. Zelinski. He is a bestselling author and professional speaker/consultant who promotes the idea of working less to achieve more balance in your life. Anyone who is tired, harassed, overworked and unhappy with their job and/or the way their personal life is going, should read any of Mr. Zelinski's works. I specifically recommend The Joy of Not Working in addition to the above. This man puts into words how I have felt my whole life.
Mr. Zelinski includes in his book the following quote from Lily Tomlin: "If I had known what it would be like to have it all, I might have been willing to settle for less."
You're preaching to the choir, honey.
It has been 97 years since women marched for the vote in New York, and 60 years since they first protested for their right to work outside the home and build a life that included more than being a wife and mother. Thanks to those pioneers of equal rights, few North American women today can even conceive of a world where they could not work, vote, file for divorce or expect protection from spousal abuse. The feminist movement accomplished many laudatory goals that furthered the educational and economic opportunities for women, and today we live a life of unprecedented freedom of choice as a result. However, the downside of all this freedom is that now both sexes are so busy earning a living and building a career, hardly any of them have the time to raise their families or run their homes the way they want. In addition, the surging debt of the last twenty years has had the ironic effect of ensuring that most women now have no choice about working again – but this time it’s that they have to, even if they want to stay home.
Every woman should have the freedom to choose what is best for themselves and their family, but I believe that if those two goals clash, then what is best for her should come first. As the saying goes, "if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." If a woman stays home when she doesn't want to, she'll be miserable and will take it out on her family. If a woman goes to work when she wants to be home, she will be miserable AND exhausted, and filled with guilt for not being there for her kids. You have to do what's right for YOU, and ignore other people's advice because only you know what is right for you. But, you have to have maneuvering room to make the decision in the first place, and debt often cancels that out. I could work part time right now if I wasn't paying back a 5 year consolidation loan - I have 3 years to go. If I had kept my expenses down and not incurred more debt, I would be free to work part time and spend more time with my kids right now, and work on my writing in my spare time. But one bad financial decision has cost me my freedom to make that choice.
Now anyone reading this who knows my history will be wondering about now why I am glorifying staying home with the kids when I myself had a mini-nervous breakdown and ran out on my family after doing just that. Again, it comes down to balance. I spent six years as a homemaker, and in the beginning I loved it. I was so happy to be at home and I did not miss my job at all. I loved spending the day with my girls. The mistake I made was not making sure I had enough balance in my life. I have never been a very social person, preferring the company of one or two people to a crowd, and spend most of my time alone, but everyone needs a social outlet of some kind. Sitting in the house with the kids was ALL I did. I had only one friend who lived a 40 minute drive away, a handful of local acquaintances, no clubs, hobbies or activities to give me a creative outlet, and very little help from my husband, who worked long hours at a job two hours away and unfortunately did not understand my temperament at all. He got all the socializing he needed at work, and by the time he got home was too tired to do anything but watch TV or go to the basement to work on his computer. We hardly spent any time together. I fell into a depression that I was unable to shake, and finally just ran, leaving everything behind.
Very drastic, yes, but in a strange twist of circumstance this irrational act put me back on track to finding myself. It was the first time in my life I defied authority and the rules and did something fully in response to my needs at the time. For the first time in my life I was listening to my own voice. Unemployed for six years with no money of my own, I spent three months living in a shelter for homeless and indigent women. For those three months I lived in a single room with nothing but a bed, dresser, and one suitcase of clothes. I ate in the cafeteria (two meals a day, $10 a week) and started working again at my old temp agency making a grand total of $1,500.00 a month. Many women would have become even more depressed at finding themselves in such circumstances, but a funny thing happened. I discovered I loved living that way – no possessions, no responsibilities, and best of all, no-one else’s expectations of who and what I was supposed to be weighing me down. I had never had such an opportunity to spend time with myself before, and I had never felt so free.
To make a long story short, I spent the last five years re-starting my career, making a home for my girls, remarrying (this time to a guy who sees the world as I do), and reading every self-help/psychoanalysis/find yourself book I could get my hands on. I now have a much better understanding of the kind of person I am, and I am not interested in having it all. I don’t give a flying rat’s patootie about money, beyond my ability to pay for food and shelter. I think spending 30+ years at a job you hate just so you can FINALLY enjoy 15 years or so of retirement is a huge waste of time. For one thing, there’s no guarantee I will live that long. I think it’s better to enjoy my life NOW and let the future take care of itself. I keep my expenses to a minimum and have set myself a three year goal of being able to make enough money with my writing to support myself.
This lifestyle isn’t for everyone, but that’s the point. Each of us has to figure out what “having it all” means to us, and ignore society’s definition, or what the advertisers tell us we’re supposed to want. My having it all means having the freedom to pursue my creative outlet while being a strong presence for my children. And I can’t do that if I’m sitting at a desk 40+ hours a week. It’s time to move on, and I am working on making it happen. One day at a time.
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