Success is a gigantic, hungry beast with several heads, evoking a broad range of emotions in people, depending on what kind of an attitude they have or how far they are from gaining their victory. Success can excite, motivate, captivate. It’s a pity that hardly anyone makes enough effort to read the additional information provided at the bottom of the contract, the one in fine print, the one for those, you know… having eyes like a hawk. However, what’s the point in reading, when everything is going great, project after project, task after task? Either way, we’re making progress, things are going on, it’s madness. And boom, one day you may wake up with a huge headache, to make matters worse not caused by a killer hangover, but by mundane reality. At that moment you will realize that when the stage lights go out, and your glory will be covered with dust, meaning less than nothing now… Exactly, what will you be left with?

Of course, generally speaking success is nothing wrong. It’s worth trying to became the best version of ourselves, developing and broadening our minds. However, you shouldn’t lose yourself to success overly. Work is just work and life is life. So just after being hit with a wrecking ball, by the way maybe it’s the source of this awful pain that appeared out of nowhere, it may turn out that you’ve devoted your life not to the things you should or at least not in the right proportion.

It may sometimes seem that you are so unique, indispensable in your work, without you this shabby tub would definitely sink to the bottom. Anyhow, knowing that before you appeared there everything had rolled forward, with you it’s still moving on… Why should it be different with you out of the picture?

At work there are no indispensable people, you may realize that as soon as you become unnecessary because of redundancy, changing management, disease or death. The grief will be short-lasting, your boss and colleagues will soon move forward over this change and no one will care that you’re no longer there.

As long as you’re still left with some time for reflection and you’ll make things work with your neglected family and personal life, that could be the bright side of your situation. It would be much worse if you got the short end of the stick and came to a conclusion that you lost your life. Despite being clever and hard-working, you didn’t take enough care of what’s indispensable in your life. One of the deadly sins is wasted time (no, you haven’t slept through the next religion lesson, of course, in my opinion it’s one of the most serious sins we can commit towards ourselves), but it shouldn’t be taken in the wrong way. You decide what kind of proportion should be devoted to your work and to your private life.

Our coworkers are usually present just at certain stages of our lives and every few years a so called natural selection is performed. Our colleagues and our past job become just a distant memory.

Exactly, if we tend to forget about some of them, why should our ex-colleagues remember about us? For some it’s a mystery, the one of a kind that cannot be solved, even if they make as much effort as while working on the 100^th project, which wasn’t so important after all. So no matter how hard they try they won’t figure it out why their work besties forgot about them.

I’ve heard once a great sentence on the Internet, the one that would stay with me for good, despite the fact I cannot remember the name of its author. We’re the lead characters just in our own lives, while for the rest of the world we’re just some background actors. Thinking about these words I realized that this guy was totally right. Why do I get upset with the fact that this or that person didn’t remember about me, since I was preoccupied with my own problems as well? Why do I lack understanding here?

If anyone asked me, what would I choose… I’d say I choose life. This statement will mean something different to each of you. I work to live, but I don’t live just to work.

When we change jobs, finish the following projects, fight with deadlines and keep running on empty, in some cases resulting in one’s death, we can compare ourselves to such a herd of sheep, doing their work thoughtlessly, because it’s right. In times of weakness, illness or other difficulties we will be supported mostly by our family and the closest friends. Our coworkers may sometimes mention us, remember us as good colleagues, we may sometimes be a part of a funny anecdote, but we will never be their world.

I want to be the world for someone, and to be that important I cannot work from early mornings to late evenings, because then even sleep becomes a commodity in short supply, let alone maintaining relations with people who are truly important to us. Not with acquaintances that you may have in huge numbers, but with chosen people who you miss and you even don’t have enough time to talk to. They say that slavery has already ended, but is it so? Have you got a healthy relationship with your work or maybe you go a little overboard? Just stop shooting yourself in the foot. You can always change your life for the better, the only problem you may face is its expiry date. It may happen you won’t manage to change your life before your or your close ones’ death. Choose what’s best for you, remembering that there may be no second chance. Work won’t run away, unlike your life. I wish you a wise and well-balanced life!

See you around!

Yours,

Passion Piece

Photos by: Alexander Dummer, Elisa Ventur, Zulmaury Saavedra, Helena Lopes on Unsplash