Life could be much better at 10 AM..

Monday morning, I woke up at 6 AM. I had no travel plans today, no one to meet, no work, an uneventful relaxed Monday I thought. I went for a jog for about 40 mins, then I found myself some time for yoga, returned home by 8:30 am. I read newspaper for sometime and had a nice breakfast with family. How I wished if this could be a regular thing, but for that I must wake up at 4 am and sleep at night by at least 9 pm considering I usually returned home from work between 7:30 - 8 pm. Sounds tight isn’t ?

Back when I was in school, the major thing I used to hate about school is waking up at 6 am and start my day half asleep. I used to walk dead to school. I had thought many times then, how wonderful life would be if school would start at 10 am, I could get extra hours to sleep and have my breakfast at peace. Now when I see my nephew I feel the same for him. Sometimes I don’t see him for days, he would wake up before me and when I would return home he would be asleep to rush for school next day again.

Before I left my Corporate life, I recall how mornings used to be like. I would always skip my breakfast in those rush hours to office, fight the traffic and start work at 8 AM. It was never 9 to 5 and i didn’t know anyone among my friends who would actually work 48 hours a week. Its mostly 10 hours a day at office plus additional 1 or 2 hours of travelling. In a day we actually give 12 hours to work life and nominal 8 hours to sleep which left us only with 4 hours for anything else. Corporate life takes it all away from you - your family time, your happy hours with friends, your time to play with ur kid, your dinner dates with wife / girlfriend, fitness hours, late night movies, could barely think of outdoor vacations, your time for other leisure activities, and most importantly time for yourself. The race just goes on and on till you retire and then die in “peace”.

Well, I don’t wanna live like that. I love to travel and explore. So, I am working towards my goals what makes me happy. Being happy is my lifestyle.

I am not provoking anyone to leave their job, the message is for Corporates who needs to learn LIFE MANAGEMENT instead of teaching their employees TIME MANAGEMENT. They want employees to learn how to work under pressure, but I say, why do we need that pressure ? Instead find ways to get rid of that pressure. We should work to earn a living, but the reality is most of us are living for work. Most of us don’t have a choice in life and actually live only on weekends. It’s a wish of many to retire at 40 and definitely sounds imaginary if I say, you wake up at peace every morning, have time for yoga or a jog, have breakfast with family and start your work hours from 10 AM. Return home by 5 or 6 and have enough time for yourself, your parents, wife and kids.

I used to work 6 days in Saudi and one blissful day Saudi government announced a new labor law to be followed by all private and public sector companies to work only 5 days a week. Management was in stress how we would finish the work in 5 days what we are not able to achieve in 6 days. But eventually it happened as per the new rule with no effect on work. I learned something that day, our performance wasn’t effected by hours. People in France have legal rights to work only upto 35 hours a week so that's roughly 7 hours a day (5 days a week). Middle East doesn’t work on Friday and Saturday, so in a way they are closed for 3 days in the global market as Sunday is off in rest of the world. Still things are working. So the point is that why do we have so much of work pressure, why are we missing out on family time, time for ourself, time to enjoy life, when there could be real possible solutions to it.

To workaholics, this may sound like a dream for a lazy lifestyle, but I like to call myself Lifoholic.