New Found Respect for Life?

That punk is either in love with that guy's daughter...
or he has new found respect for life.
-- Grocer, Grosse Pointe Blank

There have been a few interesting posts recently about the work-style of the American corporation. For sure, I take a lot of flak with my particular take on employment. My choice to travel constantly, working for less than my worth, doing tasks much less sophisticated than that of which I am capable, etc. Needless to say, few of my friends get it, and I have yet to meet someone new who hasn't expressed their confusion at my own working style. Methinks this is a symptom of deeper problems with our cultural trends.

Consider this well known post by an EA Spouse. Makes you step back a little and start asking questions, doesn't it?

So what's the deal with the long hours, the crunch time? It takes little digging to compile references to the study of this subject. Here's a quick list:

• Can People Really Program 80 Hours a Week?
• Psychophysics in Cyberia
• Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident: Volume 2: Appendix G - Human Factor Analysis
• Scheduled Overtime Effect on Construction Projects
• Psychology and Industrial Efficiency - Hugo Münsterberg
• Samuel Crowther's interview with Henry Ford

Once you realize that the effects of overwork are well known you would think it an obvious step that we sit back and focus on productivity and health firstly and foremost. Alas, we have succumbed to the combined onslaught of the media, corporate plotting, and old fashioned greed.

In my own way, stepping back, stepping down, is the key way I am able to deal with the effects of years of self-abuse. Sure, it took the abuse of others to break me down to point that I was able to see what I was doing to myself. But sometimes even the selfish greed of others can be put to good use. When they've got you on the ground and you realize how small the world around you really is, it becomes easier to see how much of the torment from the world we actively invite into our own lives.

Savage Garden has a song entitled Affirmation in which are the following lines (in no particular order, completely extracted without permission, just go buy the album...):

I believe we place our happiness in other people's hands
I believe that beauty magazines promote low self esteem
I believe the struggle for financial freedom is unfair
I believe the only ones who disagree are millionaires
I believe forgiveness is the key to your own happiness

I don't really expect anyone to understand my own view askew. Hopefully just walking the talk will be enough.