The grind of 9 to 5.

The problem is not that working a 9 to 5 job is boring, or that work is pointless.

The problem is that most people’s ultimate driver and goal is – literally – killing time and making it go by faster.

Most people, “if money was no object” would rather be down the pub drinking, or sitting in front of the TV, or lying on the lounger at the beach, or endlessly shopping for things they don’t really need.

Nothing wrong with doing this here and there but if it’s the constant, the day’s end goal – well, you’re not living – you’re looking for ways to escape reality and get to death faster without noticing the journey and the road that we’re on.

Everything else people do – work, chores, going somewhere – is a means to an end to achieve this “ultimate activity”, which is anything that helps defocus from the present and suspend time and reality.

Any activity which does not result in some form of creation – be it an internal realisation, or helping another person realise something, learning something new, or something physical – art, invention, sustaining our existence, perhaps making the world a better place – is most likely a “time killing” activity, with zero net effect on the person and the lives and world around them.

That said, even the most mundane of tasks can also be a learning and growth experience if we us it as such.

It is that ultimate desire to relax, do “nothing” and to escape the real world, as well as the dogma of effort needing to be avoided – that are the key issue with modern society.

This desire and the time-suspending activities are promoted and encouraged at every step of the way – on the high street, in super markets, on TV, on bill boards, social media and most information sources around us. These are then regurgitated by people further distributing the message.

Effort is constantly painted as a negative activity and various ways how to avoid it are presented. Work is shown to be the pain we have to suffer and weekend and holidays are the time to look forward to and cherish – ideally doing nothing, consuming food, alcohol or things we don’t need.

Some of these will look very familiar.

“Hate Mondays” = If you keep telling yourself this, that’s what the brain will do automatically.

“TGIF” – Thank God It’s Friday = thank god that awful work week is over.

“Beat the holiday blues” = Rather than making the best and the most of the current world we’re in, the work we do, the life we live.

“Escape to the sun!” – from what? The hell we work and live in? Why “escape”? Usually one escapes from captivity.

This desire to escape realty is what makes us resent our job, eager to avoid it at every opportunity, what makes us reluctant to do routine things at home such as cleaning, cooking, shopping and all things we need to do, to exist and stay alive.

A sub-category of the time-suspending activity is hedonism and various forms of it, especially when they reach an addiction-grade level.

Hedonism is a bottomless pit. The more you spend time relaxing, enjoying yourself – be it through partying, eating out (or in – but with an unhealthy focus on taste and gluttony vs nutritional input your body needs) laying on the beach, having sex, taking drugs – the more we need still. There is no sustainable satisfaction level and a life that revolves around this activity – instead of enjoying the world around us, with all it’s surprises and new experiences.

It is, of course, necessary to participate in activities which produce a feeling of satisfaction deep inside. The problem with hedonistic activities is that they are mostly impulsive, self-gratifying and very self-focussed and extremely short lasting.

Hedonistic activities are quite commonly detrimental to the health of the participant and often also others around them – people or aspects of the world we live in (for example consuming rare delicatessen foods which require suffering of animals, such as caviar, fois gras and many other; taking drugs*, alcohol and the abuse and violence from which the latter often results).

When it comes to drugs it is important to draw the line between mind expanding drugs that help us grow – such as LSD, cannabis, Ayahuasca and other such substances vs recreational and destructive drugs such as cocaine, heroin and other extremely addictive ones.

Taking pleasure in what we do every moment of every day is so alien to most people that they cannot believe in the possibility of living like this.

Finding activities which feed our brain hunger and leave us deeply satisfied afterward is the key to an un-frustrated life away from the couch, TV, pub (as a regular need/addiction) and the paradigm shift to enjoying every day – as well as looking forward to Mondays instead of dreading them.

Better still – not caring which day of week or year it is and enjoying all equally, trying the most of every hour and every minute of every day.

There is a fix and a solution – however, there is no quick fix.

There is no red pill.

It is not quick or easy to find what we like. It takes time and trying. Trying out different activities, environments and people.

It requires the desire to find such an activity and believing that there is one for everybody.

Trying different “hobbies” and “jobs”, reading, watching educational TV programs and documentaries, reading the many positive social media sources as well as going on various travels, talking to people we meet along the way is all what is likely to result in finding activity or activities that we feel we were meant for.

It is also very common that we need to change nothing around us and that we only need to shift our perception of the situation around us.

By simply changing the way we experience the environment, the way we relate to it, how we interpret it – we can often realise that we are, in fact, where we’ve always wanted to be and nothing needs to change. A hardship may be viewed as the one true test we’ve been needing to engage us and to allow us to grow stronger and more resilient.

It is also critical to remember that there is no “too late to start again”.

Whenever you find yourself missing the “deep satisfaction” feeling for a while and the frustration just building or worse still feeling numb and disconnected from the wold – you need a big change.

Either inside or outside.

Inside is the harder one to make.

It is often not the situation, environment or the people around us that are the problem but the way we view, perceive and interpret it that is the issue.

Selfish thoughts and desires for a hedonistic life often make us get frustrated with the environment when in fact it is an amazing learning and growth opportunity.

Sometimes just a small shift in perception is all that is needed to suddenly appreciate the situation we are in and to embrace it!

There are of course also dead-end circumstance where we are trading water, not going anywhere, feeling the frustration and pointlessness of our existence.

In such situations change is what sets us free.

Change is always possible and is most times easier than it seems.

In fact, the thing that stops most people from changing is the fear of the outcome – sometimes positive. This is the fear of the unknown and what prevents most people from making that step towards a better life. Sometimes even a small change as the first step to the big one.

The key thing is to keep trying and to keep failing. Be it inside of us or outside.

Because failing is just a word. It means getting an outcome not as planned or desired.

Life, however, is mostly a chain of events which are not as planned or as desired.

The saying “it’s what you need, not what you want” and the Rolling Stones song “You Can’t Always Get What you Want” with the “but if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need” words is often at the back of my mind.

What keeps us happy, energised and not feeling frustrated or stuck in a dead-end (job) is the constant trying and moving forward. Be it fundamental changes in work, leisure life and so on or small changes within a subject or a project we’ve chosen to work at for a while.

Creation and creativity is the mechanism that allows us to move forward, to try new things.

Once on this path, we also realise that the more effort something requires, the more satisfaction it will produce in the end, be it even if there is no “successful” outcome.

Many have even figured out that hardship and suffering can also provide deep satisfaction as long as we treat it as a learning and growth experience. At the extreme end, Vietnam veterans, many years after returning home confirmed that they became better and stronger from the hardship of camps they were in.

So the problem is not the 9-5 job or some other routine.

The problem is how you perceive it, why you do it and what you do about it.

If you figure out what drives you, what you want to do, focus on getting there, the need for relaxing, drinking, eating for pleasure and other means to escape reality – will disappear.