Last week my 8 year old dressed up as a witch for her class assembly and read out a bunch of spooky jokes. I watched proudly from the audience and chuckled whenever the assembly broke out in laughter. After all, they were really good ones. My favorite from the dozen or so she read? Get ready to laugh – when do Ghosts go to work? On MoanDays and FrightDays!
This joke got me thinking. I think the greatest joke of all times is us human beings as we scurry to work, week in and week out. Imagine an alien landing on Earth on a Monday morning intent on invading us. He would see us scramble to get ourselves and our family ready, reach work after a crazy commute where we scream and curse, sit in the narrow confines of our cubicle, strategize on to-do lists and action plans, sit in endless meetings, consume unmentionable amounts of caffiene, fret and fume over deadlines while our blood pressure shoots up, get back home stressed out and physically tired…. In 12 hours, we start all over again.
And we pride ourselves that we are the most intelligent species the good God made. Nope, as Agatha Christie states, (or more specifically my darling Detective, Hercule Poirot) men are creatures of habit. We love to do the same things again and again. So if the above-mentioned Alien watches the human race at work for a week, he would flee in boredom never to come back. In fact, Nations should forget arming ourselves with nukes – just play a video of the human race going to work and back and see if the aliens don’t surrender in sheer boredom.
So what can we do about it? Well, practically nothing that would change things in the near future. In fact even in the Space Family Robinson, the father goes to work everyday and is faced with similar challenges as us humans in the 21st Century.
So is there a point to this blog, you ask. Hold your horses young lady, am coming to it. Yes, the point is that what we do daily is absolutely hilarious and not without much of a point. So maybe we should start taking ourselves less seriously. Maybe start treating this entire “work” thing as a joke and relax a little. Since this is something that we will be doing 70% of our life, let us learn to treat going to work as ONE BIG JOKE, reduce our stress, and just enjoy the work.
So from this week onwards we will stop treating our work days as Moandays, Sadderdays, Frightdays, Cursedays etc. and turn them all into Fundays. Who’s with me?