Working … are you kidding me?
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Work in its traditional meaning
It’s in the nature of a human being to work, to be occupied with something. For hundreds of thousands of years, human activity was related to hunting and protecting the family. It was rather connected to survival. Today we work for many reasons: to finance our needs and those of our families, to get recognition, social reputation, money, knowledge, etc.
The truth is, there is always a reason, a goal we are trying to reach. As long as this goal is achieved, we are ready to work hard and make sacrifices. The work we do is a means to achieving our aims. This is completely legitimate.
It is not surprising that etymologically, work is connected with physical labor or an action to achieve a goal.
Sometimes we enjoy our work, sometimes we detest it and sometimes we just see it as something that has to be done. In any case, it is always work, meaning that if we could, we would rather do things we enjoy — going on a vacation, seeing our friends, going out, etc.
Work in the age of startups
The one described above is the traditional paradigm, and most of us still sees our jobs through this model. With the rise of startups and new technologies, we created a new paradigm. There is no strict line between leisure and work. We actually work all the time, but it is not exactly work in its traditional meaning. The concept of work we have has changed, because it is most often related to our own project.
1. No borders
Let me put it this way. Startups are all about the project we create. A project that is inseparable part of our lives. We live this project and it is not anymore about things being done. It’s an idea that develops from day to day and we enjoy watching it and being a part of it. From this point of view, there is really no border put between our work and our daily lives. The idea and the project we are working on is something we spend a lot of our time on and we enjoy doing it. We even prefer doing it to spending our leisure time in different way.
In the globalized world we are living in, the borders are being wiped out, and the strict division between our work and our leisure time is just one more. This is even more true when having in mind that more and more people don’t go to offices and work from home.
2. The ambition
The question is, are we still as ambitious as we used to be when working in our offices? With no working hours, no strict to-do list, no specific assignments or schedule?
To remind, the working shifts and working hours were invented during the industrial revolution. Back at that time, this was very useful. It still is nowadays. However, the world is changing fast and new models and patterns are being created.
Imagine that for the people who spent their lives working under traditional paradigm, with strict working schedule, adapting to new models can be difficult. People would feel lost in a context where there is no need to draw a line between work and hobbies and no need to stick to strict working hours. Without anyone to tell them what has to be done and set the deadlines, it is true they can be a bit confused. This is especially true if we are used to somebody else fixing our schedule and the amount of hours we have to spend working on a specific task.
In one word, this is freedom. In startup world, it is most often on us to set our goals, organize our time and fix the deadlines, but still being flexible. We might do less in one day, but more in the long-term. This actually makes us more ambitious, more persistent and more confident, because it’s our idea, our dream, our project that is in question. We are the ones in charge, and the success or failure will depend only on us.
‘The biggest adventure one can take is to live the life of his dreams’ — Oprah Winfrey
3. Work — our own project
Normally, working under traditional paradigm supposes working for someone and on somebody’s project. Rarely, we have no one supervising us and telling us what we should do. We often lack freedom and this is why we feel the project we are working on is not really ours. There are exceptions of course.
On the contrary, when working in a startup, we are our own boss. The idea is ours and people who decide to join us most often decide to do so because they share our idea and our vision. In this context, our idea is our dream and we keep working on it day after day. But we are not really working. We are enjoying our dream every day. It is just too personal to perceive it through the traditional paradigm of work.
Just to bear in mind, and as already said, this new model will not fit to everybody. As every other model, it has its limits and it’s not perfect. Many people are used to and still prefer the traditional model and it works better for them. Everybody has the right to make the choice.
What is good about choosing the new model, is that we focus every single day on the realization of our dream and we might not have quick results, but in the long term, if we do the things right, we make our dream reality and we bring something new to the world.
New idea. New vision. New project. New dream.
Don’t forget that ‘The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams’ — Eleanor Roosevelt.
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