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Friday, March 29, 2024

There is life after work…

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According to Confucius, choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. It’s great advice, but it’s not always that simple. There are a lot of things to consider and difficult to parlay that into a viable source of income.

Ignoring passion

Due to the scarcity of employment opportunities, people tend to grab whatever job was being offered to them that will give a higher salary. Passion has been ignored in choosing a job nowadays due to the pressing need to provide the basic needs of a person to be able to survive in this world.

According to Philippines Statistics Authority, the employment rate in January 2016 was estimated at 94.2 percent. Therefore the remaining 5.8 percent will have no job, which is about half a million people scavenging for job opportunities. Therefore, we do not really have the luxury to be choosy when it comes to employment.

Getting a life

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I envy those who have been earning from doing the things they love to do such as basketball players, professional divers and musicians. I could only hope that one day, I will pack my bags and just go do the things I want like swim, climb mountains and travel the world.

According to Paula Caligiuri who wrote a paper entitled “Get a Life, Not a Job,” the world is full of people who have done just that—they’ve taken their hobbies, originally enjoyed solely for personal pleasure, and turned them into income-generating career acts. Hobbies with tangible outcomes, such as art, sewing, baking, cooking, photography, playing a musical instrument, and the like, can easily move to income-generating career acts.”

She also mentions “people who enjoy what they do for a living tend to own their careers in the sense that they themselves have planned, developed and shifted their career focus to create the stimulating, secure, and balanced work situations they desire. They craft the career acts they like the best, over time. They also have tailored for themselves a sense of financial security by knowing that if one aspect of their career is losing steam (or interest) other career acts can provide a safety net.”

Being real

But to be realistic whether we like it or not, we are tied up with obligations and responsibilities. We have bills to pay, rent to pay and family to help. I can’t just really go nomad and get out without a care in the world.

What I can do is to just maximize my time after office. I make sure that I have none to very minimal over time at work and I don’t take my work at home. Once I shut off my work laptop, I switch to another self, which is my “me” side of life.

I do not admire workaholic people. Some will say that being a workaholic implies that the person enjoys his or her work or feels compelled to it. But for me, I highly believe that it is a sickness that needs to be cured, because there is life after work.

Enjoying work

I may not have the job of basketball or a tennis player, but my job provides for what I need. It is still enjoyable due to the work environment that my company gives to its employees. I may feel like dragging my feet to work in some days but at the end of the day, at least I have a job and can contribute to the society in some ways. For now, it is just proper mind setting on how I see my work.

Maybe one day, I will be free from all obligations and will be able to just go and do the things I love and not depend on my available vacation leaves. Someday.

The author is an MBA student at the Ramon V. del Rosario College of Business.  This essay is part of a journal she keeps in fulfillment of the requirements of the course, Lasallian Business Leadership with Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics.  Visit her blog at https://interiorempacemsite.wordpress.com/.

The views expressed here are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official position of DLSU, its faculty, and its administrators.

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