A Glimpse of Normalcy

Changing routine tests assumptions, and undergoing quarantine has forced a reconsideration of how our lives were ordered against our interests.

Sleep is better and longer, with less stress and worries because the next day will be methodical and adhere to a plan instead of subjected to crazed chaos reacting to the urgent need of the moment. Proper restorative sleep boosts our energy, mood, and ability to function.

You get to sleep until a normal hour because there’s no commute or traffic to rush into and endure as you wait in a line of cars. Instead, you preserve normal calm while skipping needless aggravation and saving money on gas and tolls. There’s time for breakfast now and it costs less than picking up something that wasn’t good for you anyway. Reflecting on the requisite rushing of the past allows us to see how costly the dizzying hurry was, and can plainly see that focused effort has superior quality. For years we were urged to shoddy results and judged after being squeezed and run down in conditions contrary to good outcomes.

Remote work goes steadily, and the pretense of the office wardrobe and the time to prepare a professional appearance now seems ludicrous when t-shirts and sweats suffice; socks and underwear optional.

No need for soda and candy as remedy for office torment, nor need to engage in chatter about things that don’t matter, or subjected to the babble of everyone in cubes around you that makes people dependent on headphones or disassociatives. Quarantining banishes office misery and reveals it as a mere social construct not necessary for performing work.

Lunch at home is less expensive and quicker than going out for lunch like you did before at an office. The monthly budget is improved with the expensive fillers cut out. You never really wanted to be stuck in some distant place dependent on buying inferior versions of things you already had at home.

You can go for a walk in the morning, afternoon, or evening. Since you are already home, your obligations are finished long before darkness falls and thy day remains full of possibility. Accordingly, you also get much done and are satisfied with accomplishments, which means little interest in distraction with entertainment shows or medication with substances, the evening version of coping with suffering.

It is easy to wrap up the day because tomorrow will be another good day, so you go to sleep at a reasonable hour in preparation to be at full power to meet tomorrow. You have compromised nothing, cut no corners, and taken on no debts to repay with questionable promises.

All of this was in reach before, but we bought in to the premise that we were to sacrifice our health and sanity for the ridiculous conditions entangled in the office lifestyle. Now divorced from the office, work gets done just fine and several hours of our day are returned to us as a freedom dividend.

Having seen an alternative to the office, how many will be able to ever again consider its premise as anything other than a complete thoughtless and dangerous imposition? If widely adopted, we could take the next step to cutting the workday in half, mandating that useful tasks be completed and no one forced to occupy their desk position imitating work just so that mandated hours are filled in accordance with rules carried over from factory labor norms.

Coronavirus COVID-19 is considered an illness dangerous enough that we need to change how we have been living to avoid its impact, but that also afforded a fresh look at the consequences of job structures that have been unnecessarily making us sick for decades.

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