Dead The 8 Hour Work Day

How American’s Continue to Miss the Mark on True Happiness

Photo by 🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič on Unsplash

As a parent one of the worst feelings is not being there for your child, As an entrepreneur one of the worst feelings is working a job for someone else, as a human being one of the worst feelings is not being able to enjoy your time. For years weve been taught the “traditional” 8 hour work day. Somehow we are supposed to survive on 8 hours work, 8 hours recreation and 8 hours rest/sleep. In this article you’ll read why we need to “Dead the 8 Hour Work Day”. You will see why an 8 hour work day doesn't give families, entrepreneurs and single parents nearly enough time that they need.

“Work should fit into your lifestyle, not your lifestyle fit into your work”.

All human beings are being robbed of their lives by working an 8-hour workday. Regardless of whether you sit at a desk all day or do physical labor if you have to be engaged in a task requiring your attention and doesn't allow you to focus on what you want, you're being robbed. Let me elaborate on this for a moment. So American’s are conditioned to want more, more money, more cars, bigger houses, etc. This conditioning has come from years of media influence and now social media influence. People have lost their connection with God and themselves so they have replaced that with technology. If something is constantly reinforced in your life you will believe it. Let’s take real estate for example. The average consumer wants way more than they need. The mortgage companies and so many others could save the world, cure cancer, and homelessness off how much they make in interest per day if you catch my drift but yet we continue to let these situations perpetuate so we can have a massive home. This is the perception that most people have.

Most families struggle with the 8-hour workday, here's a typical family of 4, 2 kids, and a dog schedule.

1. Hopefully, wake up between 6–7 am, get some me time, and a quick workout in before 9 am.
2. If you have young children, they will need help getting prepared for school, daycare, or whatever, not to mention if you have a child with a learning disability.
3. oops, not time to cook breakfast and no time to work out.
4. Mom and dad are out of the house by 8:30, mom takes John (4) to daycare and Dad drops off Matt (8) at school.
5. Mom gets off at 5 pm and Dad is working overtime to pay for the big ass house they just purchased that was overpriced (in this market) that they don’t really need but they got approved for 500K so why not?
6. Mom picks up John after work and Matt is at a friend's until 7.
7. Mom gets home around 6, starts dinner, Matt gets home at 7, they all eat dinner.
8. Dad gets home at 8, talks to mom for about 30 mins, tucks the kids in at 10 pm, Mom is already asleep in bed, Dad has a beer and crashes at midnight.

I don’t know about you but that was exhausting just to type. Do this all over again for 5 days straight, just to sleep in a house you can’t enjoy and barely spend any time with your kids, who are now conditioned to continue the cycle because they’ve seen you do it for 30 years.

I could go on with scenario after scenario on how and why this isn't beneficial to anyone but the companies you're working for and the note holder of the mortgage. Instead, I’m going to offer some solutions because after all, that’s what's important.

1. You have to change your mindset and let go of some of the things you feel you want and need. You have to make yourself and your time a priority. This is easier said than done, most people know they need to change but change is uncomfortable so they never do.
2. Find out how you want to live your life as soon as you can, the younger the better. If you know you want to go pre-med and be a doctor you will know that having children might interfere with that so plan properly. Most of us may not be sure how we want to live our lives or we don't discover this until were already 35 so now the adjustment is way harder, either way, please find it as soon as you can.
3. If you want to gain some of your time back and have control of your schedule try flex jobs that allow you to work on your own schedule.
4. If you run a business or you're an entrepreneur you may work 10 hour days for 4 days and then have 4 days off, you know what you can handle just make sure to take time for yourself.

Key Takeaways

• Have a plan, if not you plan to fail
• You, your health, and what you love are most important don’t sacrifice who you are for a job, you can make some sacrifices but have a deadline
• Change your mindset, really look within to discover what things are most important to you, and start to make necessary changes.

Thanks for reading, for more information on the writer you can view her website here.