is everything being on a precise time schedule causing our unhappiness?

a reply to: TinySickTears

On the one hand, I agree in principle, that a regimented, routine existence, reminiscent of level grinding in a computer game in some respects, can be damaging to the mental health of individuals. Human beings do not run on order, psychologically speaking, but thrive on chaos. Not total chaos mind you, but the chaos which is the natural and survivable result of living naturally, on a timetable dictated by natural impulse, rather than artificiality.

However, I do not think it is wise to assume that the cockerels call was any less of a wrenching lever, against the sweet repose of sleep, than is the alarm clock, or the wake up call, or any other common method of getting up to be about the days tasks. However, consider the TYPE of work that was being done in the times to which we refer.

Most of the work in the times previous to the industrial revolution, which was being done anywhere, by anyone, was agricultural. That means that although the time of day which one begins ones works might be the same, the work done changes according to the season, the crop being tended, the animal being birthed, the weather on the day. One might spend an afternoon mending fences, or shearing sheep, or putting up a barn. No matter how many days a person might work, boy to man, man to grave, he might never have an entirely tedious day in all his life, assuming fate and chance conspire to make things interesting for him. And always, all around him, whether in town to sell his wares and arrange contracts of supply, or on the farm he might have worked, he would be surrounded by examples of the immediate effects of his work. In the field he would see his crop grow from sprouting little speck of green, to towering, corn laden maturity. At its edges, its boundary markers standing proud. Within the confines of pasture, the flock he had tended from birth, and at the end of a day of dairy work, the milk to be distributed about town, all stacked up in vessels, ready for transport.

Ones effort in those days had immediate results, even if those results were not necessarily financially rewarding on the day of work being done. But now...

Yes, work which rewards the soul as well as the pocket is nearly impossible to come by, without vast quantities of luck. The mindless tasks to which we are put by the society we live in, and the necessity to get by in it, even at the expense of sanity and the nourishment of our metaphysical being, are often far less rewarding, and indeed, many do not even pay well enough to be worth actually doing. I would be all for a more relaxed approach to many things, but in and of itself, the approach is not the only thing wrong with the world of work and the things we do to make ready for it, in this day and age. There are many things about it which utterly confound the reasoning mind.

a reply to: TrueBrit

You're right about chaos.

The imp in me would set fire to that cornfield.

a reply to: TinySickTears

I didn't read every reply here, so if this is a repeat forgive me...

If all that time precision didn't matter, if being late by 52 seconds didn't matter, just think about how many millions of "middle-managers" would be unemployed! That's all they know how to do, right? I mean, they went and got their exalted "business" degree at The Carbuncle Technical School and Rectal Inspection Institute, and put in their time serving Trout Dogs as Asst. Manager at Capt. Hook's Fish & Chips on Wilshire Blvd. for 9 years. What else would they do?

It's all about the middle managers, man. Think about the middle managers!

a reply to: auroraaus

Hehe! I am sure it would!

Mischief maker you!

a reply to: TinySickTears

As someone who doesn't follow a schedule and works from home since ever, i can tell you that some of my friends who have the kind of schedule you described pretty much look miserable from my point of view

I can describe a few things i've seen so far

- We want to go get some coffee at some nice place, they can't because they are on the job and have to work late
- We'll take the weekend off, they have to work on sat so no go if we wanted to go out of town or whatever
- Let's stay late watching movies, can't because have to work early
- Let's go have lunch together, can't because it's a bit far and i have to get back to work in 30
- At what time are you off work? Can we go to the movies? Can't because i have to do laundry, cleanup and get ready for the week, plus i have to get some other stuff done so this week i'm not available
- Let's go out of town on vacation, we'll go to the beach as a group! Can't because i don't have vacation until August or whatever other month or will use vacation to go see my parents because it's been two years since last time i went home
- etc etc etc

Don't know but it doesn't look like a nice life to me, even if they make a lot more money than i do. At least i'm free to do whatever i want, when i want and how i want