A Comment On Your Work Rhythms

Dear Younger Me,

It’s amazing the journey you will soon embark on. A journey of discovery. A journey of learning. A journey of trying. A journey of succeeding. A journey of failing.

Younger me, this journey you will soon embark on is the post-college journey. The post under-graduate education journey. The post-school journey.

It’s a strange one I must say. Strange because it’s an all too familiar past rhythm that rears back up in familiarity. A rhythm of early mornings, late nights, and busy days. That is not where it is strange, however. It is strange in its nuance. Its nuance from the college late nights and the college early mornings. Where despite the same rhythm the timing is different. The freedom is different. Whereas class fluctuates on various times or days, the post-grad job returns back to the pre-university days.

The days of elementary school and middle school and high school where you where you are in your classroom (office) learning and studying (working) for 8 hours a day. If you think about it… the “normal” post grad working world is all to familiar to the confines of pre undergraduate education.

So then why do things change in college?

I think that’s why it is such a hard transition for so many.

I think that’s why it will be such a hard transition for you.

You just spent the last for years getting a “taste” of freedom. Although you may be confined to a campus, you could escape after a 50 minute class. Imagine trying to leave the office for the day at 10am after your hour long meeting…

It’s underheard of.

Why should it change?

I’m not calling for upheaval younger me, not at all.

But why force the confines are work to be expected to be done between a specific time period? How many of us thrived off of late night study sessions? I’d reckon more than we think.

Or early morning last-minute-prep? I’d reckon an even greater number.

As you prepare for this great journey, younger me, I will challenge you to find the work, the job, the career where the freedom of late nights and early mornings can be mixed with the middle day video game break.

For it happened during our most formative educational years.

Why should it stop?

Best,

Older You