Friday, September 21, 2007

That Forbidden Fruit...

Huhh ...huh..uuh..huhh..uh..huh!

Yep, that’s me panting. No not physically, just mentally. Panting! My brain is panting, my mind is panting, and my own conscience is panting. Life has become a constant marathon, with no time to live!

I remember my life’s motto from a long time ago to just one year back. Live to Eat! (I assure you I’m slim in figure and do NOT resemble a pig). Food! That’s all that mattered back then. Somehow I stumbled upon this sect of people who “worked” for a living, who claimed they “Work to Live”. So I thought I’ll try this cool thing called work, and found out that they were SO mistaken. You don’t work to live, you live to work!

Is it just me and the cubicles around me? Or is this the global trend?

Did I choose the wrong class of work? Or are all classes of work, addictive and time consuming as mine?

Am I just a weak athlete, or is this race really hard to run?

I remember reading about an underwater archaeologist who said, “Diving, is the greatest joy of my life, and now I get paid to do it”. How great is that? This was my idea of work. But no! Maybe I still haven’t found a way to get paid for the greatest joy of my life (eating, with dancing in second place - proof, of my un-piggish figure). I know you don’t get paid to eat, unless you’re the taster to the king, where again, you may jolly well end up being poisoned to death. As for becoming a professional dancer, well, after my first dance competition I learnt that training with someone else can be even more stressful than my live to work routine.

It’s amazing that…

…the last time I went on a 3 hour walk on the beach at 5am was before I started working.

…the last time I sat under a tree and had an endless nonchalant chat with a friend was before I started working.

…the last time I danced 3 hours straight to Sun-FM music (including commercials) was before I started working.

…the last time I learnt to play a song I liked on my guitar (know a few chords, that’s it) was before I started working.

Have you noticed that we even plan our recreation and relaxation now? We plan our time with family and friends, so that we can somehow fit everything in to our live to work.

We now pay for head massages to relieve stress, when all we need is sufficient sleep.

We make appointments for foot care, when all we need is a nice sand scrub and a sea water splash by the beach.

We go to the gym to work out or for aerobics lessons to keep fit, when all we need is to do our own work at home and maybe play some cricket on the road, like we used to.

But we Live to Work, so forget about sleep, beach and cricket, and get professional help!

I some how trace this all back to Adam and Eve. Now if this hungry couple had not eaten that forbidden fruit, we would all still be in the Garden of Eden, eating all the yummy fruits without a care in the world. And Live to Eat, we literally would!

The Holy Bible. Genesis. Chapter 3.