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[Listen to an audio version of this blog entry here.]
With the great industrial and technological advancements over the last number of generations, humanity can get much more done in a much shorter period of time compared to just a few decades ago.
One has to take the time to refresh every now and again …
As most of us are well aware, tasks that had once taken days to accomplish can now be done in mere minutes.
Toxic technology
Moreover, the need to truly trouble our own muscles has been significantly reduced with the rise of the machine in its myriad forms. With less effort, both physically and mentally, society’s overall productivity has never been greater.
The net benefit to the individual from such “improvements” is more difficult to assess, however.
Much has been written about the invasion of technology into our everyday lives and its potential toxicity. It could be — and is — argued that as our handheld devices get smarter, we become dumber.
The soft-hand, white-collar worker is particularly at risk here. Emancipating oneself from the screen can be almost impossible, whether this is for work or dubious pleasure. From a job perspective, we are at least seeing attempts in some countries to tackle this always-switched-on culture by legally demarcating the blurred boundaries between one’s working hours and leisure time.
In contrast, there is a view that the manual labourer is in a far healthier position on all fronts. To a certain extent, this holds true.
‘Many of us would do well to match the tortoise’s tempo rather than hare around, merely running to stand still, bringing more pressure and stress upon ourselves.’
As one whose career has been predominantly in the soft-hand category, I do actively seek out some donkey work on occasions. It can feel good and wholesome. For example, carrying 50-kilogramme bags of sand up a few flights of stairs means the screen is necessarily scrapped for a time. Then there are the physical-activity benefits from such labour.
That bag-carrying, it must be noted, was done here in Colombia. Health and safety regulations coupled with compensation culture in many high-income nations have, from what I gather, practically banned humans from such heavy lifting in the work environment.
Again, in most cases, the machine can do these chores more efficiently anyway. One could say laziness plays its part — it is the mother of many inventions — but mechanical assistance allows for more to get done more quickly, and usually with less personal perspiration.
The walk of life
This is the crux here. Be it white-collar work or that which requires a little more physical exertion, in today’s world the mantra tends to be, ‘More, more, more. Now, now, now.’
So even the Colombian construction worker who sweats on the job in a relatively healthy fashion — in terms of exercise that is — has little time for adequate rest and recuperation. There’s not much “me time”. That the pay is paltry in this sector is also an important factor.
This can often lead to poor diets and unhealthy lifestyle choices. When one feels overworked and underappreciated, pernicious comfort-food consumption becomes quite appealing.
Better educated professionals may be more knowledgeable of salutary practices but the work-life balance is frequently skewed in the former’s favour, especially with that aforementioned difficulty to disconnect effectively.
With the old fable in mind, many of us would do well to match the tortoise’s tempo rather than hare around, merely running to stand still, bringing more pressure and stress upon ourselves.
This isn’t to promote less physical activity. In fact, if everybody wasn’t in such a hurry, always against the clock, we could, for one, walk more, use up our own energy to move around. Appreciate the here and now rather than excessively expend energy on future events that may or may not happen.
Such an approach might actually be the key to a happier, more fulfilling life — the ability to pace oneself.
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