It’s very interesting how culture changes over a lifetime. Things that were valued but never spoken somehow get lost and forgotten. Such is the story with both work & sleep. All within my own lifetime.
Growing up, it was understood that you had to work. Everyone did with very few public complaints. You came home tired from work so sleep was never a concern. When you were tired each night you simply went to bed. Knowing well what time you had to get up for work. Work that you looked forward to, gave you the energy to plan your night’s sleep accordingly without regret.
The problem with the future is that we naively believe that life will be better. That things will be different. Yet somehow, we as humans, can only process so much information. Our attention only goes so far.
As technology took over much of our lives in the last 10 years, our understanding of the value of work and sleep vanished. We mistakenly now believe that we can be on the go 20 hours a day and that enjoying weekends and personal days have become our right and that they will not interfere with achieving significant personal success that matches our dreams.
Neither of these are always true.
Today there is a rebirth of awareness for work & sleep. They have become trendy topics for motivational speakers. We now have sleep apps to measure our sleep. While our work has changed, some of, our younger generation has begun to take work very seriously. Using their talent and energy to create so many new things with the technologies that are before them. While others don’t see the value of hard work at all.
Much of life’s basics get repeated and recycled over time. With new words and stories to revive them of their value. Yet we struggle with our attention and focus more so today than a generation ago. This is just another example of how we become our own bottlenecks and the significant challenge we face in bringing greater focus into our lives.
Work & sleep. Simple isn’t it? Yet we still lost their value along the way during our lifetime.
Interesting. Wouldn’t you agree?