Life Inside “The Machine”
As we stare down the second and third “acts” of this pandemic it’s easy to get lost in what we do.
Life has worn us down. We’re afraid to move forward and we can’t really go back. We stare blankly into our screens hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month. No wonder a record number of people are battling depression.
One of the key challenges is that work has gone from congenial relationships with co-workers to working in what seems like the depths of one giant machine.
During times of uncertainty, machines are brilliant. They are designed to survive as long as the parts continue to show up and work like they are supposed to. It’s in that showing up, though, that is becoming increasingly difficult as the pandemic wears on.
So that leaves you, a human, trying to figure out how to be both happy and productive but doing so without loosing yourself in the machine.
I’m not going to claim I have any single solution. Like many people, I’ve used a combination of exercise, meditation, and adaptation to make it through to this point. However, I did stumble upon something interesting this past week worth sharing…the fact that you are not the machine.
I don’t know how many other people “are their jobs” but that tends to describe me and that little statement knocked my over with its simplicity and truth. I had to hear it and I have to repeat it.
I am not the machine.
If anything good comes of this time – including the ability for more of us to work from home – perhaps it’s that simple ability to gain better perspective.
Perhaps, just perhaps we can recognize our independence from the machine.
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