By Jason Dagenhart
Round Table reporter
We’re sitting, we’re standing, we’re moving, we’re working, we’re running, we’re sweating, we’re standing, we’re jumping, we’re seeing but not agreeing, we’re thinking but not calculating, we’re hearing but not listening, we’re feeling with no emotion, we’re never tiring and never ending. We’re machines.
Everyday is the same old routine, whether you are a student who wakes up at five in the morning, goes to school till around three in the afternoon and then stays up the rest of the day doing homework, a college student who goes to school everyday but also has to steady out a part-time job to pay for the college you are attending, or a proud member of the working class society who also has a redundant schedule that repeats day after day.
It’s never ending, this mechanical flow. Every day is a complete rerun of the last, and nothing changes. It’s a never-ending cycle of nothing but lack of life.
Humans are machines, plain and simple. We are always doing something, rarely just relaxing or doing nothing. And when we are relaxing and doing nothing, our minds are preoccupied with the thoughts and emotions of the real world which conflict within us in constant turmoil and never leave us alone.
There never seems to be enough time to stop concentrating on the troubles of life and relax and forget, if only for a little, how complex life can become for so many people.
According to a study by the National Sleep Foundation, “The average employed American works a 46-hour work week; 38% of the respondents in their study worked more than 50 hours per week.”
Where’s the time to sleep during this work week? That is almost an eight hour work day for five days, sometimes even six when people work on Saturday.
The only time people seem to relax for even a little bit is when they sleep or take naps. When one goes to sleep, his mind shuts down and it can relax a bit because it doesn’t have to do anything for a whole night. The conscious mind becomes the sub-conscious mind and it works through no effort at all. And this lack of effort is called our dreams.
Our dreams are the gateways to other worlds, real or not. And they can be either quite relaxing or even more troubling than real life. We have those really sweet dreams where everything is fine and comfortable, and you enjoy them because it takes you away from what you have been concerned about.
But then there are those horrendous dreams where all the dream focuses on is what the real life has thrown at you. And that is a sure sign that what you are focusing on in the real world has consumed your thinking too much.
There have been rumors that the number of days that are currently in the weekend (two) might be changed to a three day weekend.
To me, this would be absolutely perfect. I know there’s a five day work week and everyone’s used to that, but it would help a lot to have even one extra day to relax and get all the ailments from the work week out of your system. You know, give us a little time to recharge our batteries and oil out our kinks.
But really, let’s be serious. Would we all stop this routine we’ve so mechanically gotten used to? Some people never stop working and some never start, but if something could change, would we have the guile to follow?
I say no, we wouldn’t. We are too ingrained into our routine to do anything else besides what the routine entails and follows. People are afraid of change, so why change?
But the whole point of this random topic is that people never seem to stop. They don’t slow down and review or think about what they did or about what they’re about to do.
We should all just slow down and relax for a little while.
