Working the night shift

I've been working at a new job that requires me to be awake when most normal people would be knee deep in 8 hour REM sleep and it's beginning to feel strangely familiar. Once upon a time I was a night shift worker at another place of employment where I spent my evening hours toiling under the glow of television monitors, barking orders to random people at remote locations. It was a fun period of my life. It was also an awakening for me.

My days are now spent in the slumber of my bedroom until early evening when I awake to start my day. The days kind of have this blend to them as if they are the same, but in actuality they are different. Sometimes it feels like I'm in the Groundhog movie. Still this new schedule has permitted me the chance to do more with my professional career which has been stagnated the past several years due to mother nature and crappy timing. I remember reading a story about a very successful businessman who believed that our lives are what we do, and for most of us that work atleast 40 hours a week, what we do is work. According to this prophetic man we spend 75 percent of life working so we should be happy with what we do. I'm not saying that everyone is happy with what the do, but there is a kind of peace that we all find in our work. Something that helps us translate into doing something for the better.

I relate this to the "Good Will Hunting" scene where Matt Damon's character, Will, justifyies his work as a janitor to Robin William's character, Sean.

"There's honor in being a mechanic. He works his ass off everyday, so that someone can get to work on time. There's honor in being a brick layer, he builds a home so that you can live in," Will yells.

"Yeah. but I don't see why of all the places to work as a janitor you choose the most prestigeous college in the U.S., and then you sneak around at night to fix mathematic equaitions so no one else will see. There's not a lot of honor in that," Sean rebutes.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that you can find honor in almost every job. The issue is finding a place within yourself to make sure that you are doing the most honorable thing by using your talents to create meaningful work. Whether it's working on a night shift on a road crew, or toiling the day hours at a desk job. Find out what you like to do, then do it. We spend way too much time working for money sake, it's about time we all started working for our happiness.