The real excitement begun when I walked into the office space for a new job early this month. For the past four week plus earlier I was taking time-off from my obsession over a busy life; my long-time love. In this country, this culture it is common to acknowledge people working 8 hours a day (some may be extended to 12 hours) and at the same time easy to see these working crowd to also have enjoyable time with friends or office colleagues outside the office. Government officers clock-in at 8 am, but by 8.30 am many of them may not be available for official duty in office because it is breakfast time. For years, time-off for these officers are well accustomed to both internal and external customers- 4 breaks from duty (breakfast, morning break, lunch and afternoon tea). Work progress were known to be slow due to this culture. No offense to the government agencies, but over the years, many private organizations have also embraced this culture. Well, this is Malaysia. If you were to compare this culture with other developing or less-developed countries' working cultures, ours is not so bad-if you know what I mean.
Anyway, back to my early statement. I was known to many friends and colleagues over my obsession over busy life. When I was younger (not that so many years ago), I thought keeping myself busy will justify my need to be better learned. With time being limited in a day, I found that there is so many things in this world could be left unlearned if I follow the common crowd. Hence, time management to me became less significant to my life. My daily activities were being segregated slightly different from those whom I knew. The average time spent on shower, eating and sleeping for a day is no more than 1/4 of my active daily hours (i.e. 35 mins for shower & getting dressed, 15 mins per meal and 4 hours for sleeping). If I have to get a break, I'd say the most would be 30 mins a day, accumulatively. Left with 18 hours a day, I have been slaving myself with longer span of time doing something. Leisure is considered a luxury to me, which only happened once in a blue moon. For your information, I have always thought that when I did my diploma in performing arts, I have already spent more than enough time at movies, theaters and music.
After a while I have come to a point where my physical & mental health were highly exhausted. These stupid obsession over being busy had taken so much of my personal life, until I was left with nothing. Only after I went for my degree (and that was in my final year), I had so much time to dwell into many personal things. Being far away from the familiar environment setting had given me so much free time. I was not going to find extra job, just to fulfill my need to being busy. At first my decision to give myself a long time-off and focus on my existing study almost made me crazy. I was on bed, watching tv and did nothing else just to fill the free time. I did not go window shopping, play bowling or watch movie because I thought all those activities were non-beneficial to my studies. Other than sleeping and lazing around the room, on-and-off I read books, till I don't have anymore book to read. Occasionally I went out and sat at Starbucks with my laptops, writing about the scene I observed for hours. That was my hobby (I supposed).
When I came back to KL and start working, I was happy. Happy in the sense where I could start being busy again. My work orientation suited my needs. However, after a while I get bored. My aim was to build a career, not kill myself in the process. Suddenly, more reasons for freeing myself from the obsession became clear. Life is simple. People who live that life that is making it complicated. I then quit. Trying to find a work-life balance. Along the process, I learned that you can still contribute and build yourself effectively without becoming a slave.
Now, the only challenge that I have to go through is to make myself comfortable with new environment.
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