Toxic

I think work is toxic..it just took me 2 weeks back at work to almost turn me into a coffee craving and workaholic maniac...

Dun get me wrong, I love my job, it offers lotsa variety and challenge, and lots of stimulating stuff to my mind, perfect for the cerebrel airsign, me. But the hours and dateline can be crazy.

After taking work easy (free lancing) for some time.. and having been around innocent kids for a couple of months, it has been a while since I felt so hyper..

But work, when taken in huge doses and without the right mental perspective nor direction , is nothing but toxic.

It poisons our mind and makes us think it is the most important thing in the world.
It corrupts our mind and heart into craving for power, for more money, for a bigger ambition..
It weakens our soul as it makes us forget what it feels like to return to a gentle, peaceful world. It makes us fearful and leaves us feeling naked if we do not feel all that important at work.

This, is a disease of today's world.
I have people telling me work is their life. Well, go get another life then.

I am passionate about the work i do. When I am at work, my mind is on with its tentacles all out to grab the next big idea that comes along.

But something in me has changed. Maybe i had managed to save myself or re-connect with myself while I was spending all that time alone and doing things that are meaningful to me. Things that gave me equal satisfaction, if not more, than work.

I feel more empowered and in control when I return to work this time round. I know the toxic is there but I do not succumb to it. I have that awareness not to fall into that trap again. And i hope this clear lucid sense of who I am lasts.

It is not that I am not ambitious, I am - but ambition is no longer my only driver. I give my fill at work, but I also want another life away from work. So this time round, even though I have a 6pm dateline, and it was already 12 pm when I was only at slide 12 of this crazy 3in1 cum more than a million bucks proposal (and if you know the work I do, you will know how crazily BIG that number is for a proposal) , I "zen" myself.

I did not skip lunch as I would use to do, but instead I went for lunch to fortify myself for the battle later on. I told myself that I will finish by six.. and i refuse to let the panic and time crunch eat me alive. It is as if I was outside of myself looking in.

And I won. At 8 pm, i strut out of office knowing I did a good piece of work, and nothing of that work hangs on to me. Cuz I know I fulfilled my role at work, and now I want to come home with hubby to my babies, whom i missed ..

This - is empowering. And maybe, this is also growth.