As I break my life down, and begin to strip away unnecessary things, I am starting to wonder just how necessary having a job really is. Is this another area of my life I could minimize?
Anyone who has known me would call me a workaholic. I chased my career and I chased it hard. In particular, my married life brought on a fervor for career success unlike anything I'd experienced before.
Tonight, I started to ask myself why. Why do I need a job?
I was chasing success and status, I've concluded, partially as a response to fears and anxieties. My job could be my proof to the world that I am good enough. It was my proof to my ex that I deserved his love and care, it was my proof to my parents that I was successful. It was also a way to acquire all of the material goods in sight.
I was using the status and the money to plug a gap in myself - I was trying to chuff this big black hole so full of stuff and external validation with the hope that I might come to feel happy. This was a big part of the life script, wasn't it? This is what we were meant to do to be happy. Get married, get a job, then eventually make babies, buy a house, buy a car...
Except it didn't work.
Now, for the first time, I am feeling a contentment that is unrelated to anything external. I don't need to wave my job around to justify my existence. I don't need to buy something to feel like I matter. I matter enough on my own, and stuff is seeming more of a burden than anything else.
I feel like I am standing on the cusp of an opportunity. I want to live a life that is full of travel, full of passion and people, full of meaning and reading books and swimming in bodies of open water. I am slowly convincing myself, with the help of assorted internet non-conformists, that maybe there is a way to do all of these things and survive without the stress of a 9-5.
It is a terrifying thought, not having the security of a set monthly pay packet.
Why, though? Why is it a terror? And, all terrors aside, can you live without a job?
No comments:
Post a Comment