Learning Not to Bring Work at Home


When I was in the Philippines, I worked almost 12 hours per day, seven days a week. To be honest, I could count in my hand how many days I considered as my rest days. It was literally impossible for me to rest. I worked at least three jobs in one month without fixed schedule. Although I was lucky to work, but I literally lost time for myself and brought work at home. As a result, our house became an extension of my workplace.

Generally speaking, I can say I was able to benefit from my busy work schedule. Aside from earning way higher from what my Filipino contemporaries are earning, I was able to acquire significant amount of insights, especially in management of resources. At the height of my career in the Philippines before, I was able to travel and teach in several places at young age. However, this came at a very high price. I slept at average three to five hours a day, making me very irritable at home and not functioning the way I should. I literally lost the chance to be with my friends and my family. Sometimes, I got to question myself why I was doing it and whether things are still worth it. Well, now I do not regret any moment of it.

In the past few months, I was learning something I was not familiar. Now, I enjoy my weekends. Literally, most stores are closed and people really do not work during weekends. I could also see that most people, if not all, go home from work around four o-clock in the afternoon. A situation I seldom got to see in the Philippines. I remember usually my usual four-o-clock is still my mid-day for I have to prepare for my evening classes then. At present when I go home, I still see files of books near me, but most of these books are related for self-improvement. Unlike before, those books were related to work. Worse, I have very little time to do chit chats with the people I live with. Now, I can sit in the kitchen for two hours, sharing things with my flat mates. Perhaps, my closest friends in the Philippines have noticed this, because I do not even have luxury of time to make a blog before, now I can.

Do not get me wrong. You may be thinking I am living very comfortably in Norway. I am not. Trust me I know when I am, but for now, I am on the process of having a stable job. Since I live with my sister, things ofcourse are less difficult I admit. She helps me on things I simply can not do. Moreover, even before even times get tough, me and my sister just do not focus on thinking of it. We are very mindful of our thoughts, keeping it as optimistic as possible. This is the reason why things seems to fall in their place at the right time.

Even for social media, I mixed work with my personal life. I admit I still do now, but at a lesser degree. I usually do not reply to Facebook messages about work, and if I do, now I learn to say, let us talk tomorrow when I am at work. Before I even alloted time for me to develop a website for work and I solely maintain it at times, in spite of my busy schedule. Now, I still do because I have future plans for myself and for others. This is do because I have the time for it, not really because I force myself to do and finish it.

Lesser time at work, more time for life. I could say I never talked to my mother and my father longer than I used to have before. Even I was living with them, but I only talked on certain days. Now, I am able to do so although through skype and discuss things I am not able to do before. How about time walking at the park alone? More time for thinking, an activity I really love. I never had time to do that before. Now, I can do that on my way home, not really worried of work waiting for me at home.

Lastly, I am still work in progress. I want to use most of my free time learning new language perhaps Spanish, French and German. I am starting but my focus is still on Norwegian. I am praying God will give me the opportunity for this. Moreover, more time for health-related activities like exercise is also I want. For now, I would rather sleep and use my time to communicate with my loved ones, rather than do this. I know I will have time for this. Seriously, now I believe for me to function well at work, I should be able to see home as a restful place, where I could be free from worries and stress. This I need to maximize my general level of functioning.

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