Don't Allow Work Take Everything From You
You must start building your life outside work today!
I have been writing more work emails than blog posts, articles, essays, LinkedIn posts, and Tweets, or Xeets, lately.
How did I even get here?
Simple. Work happened.
Work has engulfed most of my writing time. And it hurts.
Sometimes, I don't even have the time to open any of my websites to check what's happening.
I just return from work, hug my wife, peck my little chubby baby, peel off my clothes, dump my shoes somewhere, eat a little, take a shower and land on my couch, answer some messages on Whatsapp, think about the day, fall asleep (a very short and noisy sleep), and that's until the next day... while my computer remains somewhere, lonely and abandoned.
Work can steal from you if you allow it to.
I have learnt this in the last few weeks. There are many talented people who have been caged by work. Their lives revolve around their professional lives.
It's not wrong to be dedicated to work. I preach, teach, and do dedication to work. But I also understand that allowing work to take our time will hurt us.
You need to live a full and balanced life. And giving all your time to work will never allow you to live a full life.
What's my advice?
Always take time to rest and explore the other aspects of your life.
You were not just built to work all the days of your life on earth.
Some people don't even know how to rest. You won't believe it. They work while they rest. That's to show you how work has eaten deep into their lives.
Don't be that man or woman who allows work to devour their short time here on earth.
Albert Einstein was one of the greatest scientists ever to exist.
His contribution to the field of physics formed the fundamental basis of modern theoretical physics, yet this same man had enough time to pursue his hobbies and do other things apart from just work.
He loved the violin, taught himself how to play it, and enjoyed sailing.
If I ask you now, what do you love doing outside work?
Most of you don't even know.
You don't know your gifts, talents or abilities because you have allowed work to build a brick wall around your life.
There's so much outside work.
Don't be among those folks who retire and discover that they never had a life outside work.
There's so much to explore. So much.
Sometimes, it's from work that we can discover certain unique things that we can pursue outside work, but we are yet too busy with pursuing work that we can't even see obvious patterns.
While I am trying to adjust to the present demand of my work, I make sure I keep some time aside to attend to the things I love—reading, writing and building.
I hope that before August ends, I can revisit most of my nearly abandoned writing projects across all platforms I write on.
Thank you for reading.
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