paisleypiper's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- take back time Down the hall, a co-worker gasps and sighs. Next door, a grad student stresses out about life and work and school on a cell phone. The esquire has moved the sum total of the build-up of her papers from her desk to the large conference room table and they cover the table. And she is horribly depressed about this and about the stacks of work that await her. The printer and florescent lights hum. The office hums, but not in a nice way. The office hums like tires squealing away, like tires screaching to a hault. I am under fire to produce and feel the weight of too many measures on my back -- numbers, quality, innovation, living the values, image, pleasantry, calmness. My e-mail has stacked up so that I have 500 in my in-box that I need to do something with or to -- I've already deleted the junk.... And I notice an article that came over a listserv (a really good listserv that helps me innovate) by Paul Loeb (he wrote Soul of a Citizen) called "Time to Act" (www.soulofacitizen.org/articles/time.htm). The article reminds us how crucial it is that we slow down. Our horrible business erodes our lives on every level -- personal, inter-personal, civic, community. And people like me seem to be loosing what people like me fought for a few generations back. I look out my door to the office fish who lives among the tangled roots of a large peace lilly. How can he survive in this busy world by remaining fairly still? October 24 is National Take Back Your Time Day (www.timeday.org). I can't decide what to do in honor of joining millions who want to take back their time. It isn't all about work. It can't be all about work. I think I will suggest a social lunch for the folks in the office. Each day, we lodge ourselves in our offices and frantically write e-mails between meetings. It takes years to get to know someone who works a few feet away -- or maybe there are some I won't get to know at all. I'll only have a sense of them based on meetings and they way they negotiate power in a group setting. So I think if we could find the time actually talk about ourselves over a shared meal, that would be of benefit. If we could then volunteer that afternoon -- maybe help out a neighborhood association near campus -- then I would know that I had left this world and moved into the glass vase with the office fish. I am distressed because I wrote an entry that disappeared and I wanted to scream because it felt great. 4:41 p.m. - 2003-10-02 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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