“Well, I tumble outta bed and stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition
Yawn and stretch and try to come to life…
… and it's 6am, and I'm already live on camera."
The last line is the 2021 updated version of Dolly Parton's iconic 80's lyrics. It's looks like it's always showtime, and we are always on.
What started as a necessity to keep working during the pandemic transition into a societal transformation that seems to have reached the point of no return.
Yup, 9-5 has gone 24/7.
I hear some people thanking this for the digital transformation caused by the pandemic, and others blaming it on the digital transformation caused by the pandemic.
Leaving the digital transformation (yawn) and the pandemic aside (as if it is possible!), do you ever find yourself thinking, "what's the point"?
Think of all the hours and energy we put on working (plus the stress that comes with being constantly on) and one can wonder “what am I getting out of it?”.
Probably we might be spending less and saving more money, but what's the point in making money if it is not conducive to a better life?
Then think of the satisfaction work can give. Remember that sense of accomplishment and pride for a job well done? Remember when we celebrated good work instead of quickly moving to the next task? That's all out of the window. In a world where faster became synonymous with agile, there's no room for satisfaction. No time to celebrate achievements, and no time to rest either. We are all too busy for that.
I consider myself lucky to work in the creative field of a worldwide industry with a massive impact on society. I think I'm fortunate because I can work remotely and still be creative. But today, no matter in what industry you work, we are all working on an assembly line of a planetary engine that addresses the demanding needs of that very same engine. Kind of we are eating ourselves to stay alive, which is contradictory and a recipe for disaster at the same time. Well, it might have always been this way, and yet not so much.
We are all burned out.
The pandemic is in itself an enormous threat, but its consequences are as threatening as the disease itself. We all fear for our health and lives, but we are also fearing losing our jobs, the economy tanking, the future of kids who have little social interaction outside their families, or creating a generation of people who are not only socially crippled but also didn't experience the best that education can offer. I know, the list goes on, and this isn't news to anyone.
What to say to people who didn't have remote working as an option or simply lost their jobs?
One year into this and these questions become more and more critical. And yet, we are far from solving them because we haven't even tackled its origin: the virus.
But here is where I find myself going on a tangent and beginning to think that the virus isn't the mother of all these problems. It pretty much opened Pandora's box for sure, and boy, look at was lurking inside for a very long time. It seems like it's been there for centuries, and we just got used to it.
From politics to work and social issues, the virus brought out in the open everything hidden in the deepest layers of our society. And here we are, in many aspects, more aware of the world we live in but on the verge of being numb again due to exhaustion.