The Desire to Work Differently

I’ve been thinking about the topic of working differently for a while now. I find it strange to think that people have spent 40-50 years of their lives working at a job just to retire. 

I, on the other hand, have no desire to retire. I think the people who live the longest are those who continue to work.

Work gives us a sense of purpose. It’s our way of making a contribution to the world. I plan on living a long life and I know that work is a part of the long life I want to live.

Since I want to continue working long-term, working sustainably is something I think about a lot. 

Especially for women who want to be wives and mothers, working a job where we’re outside of the home for 40 hours a week isn’t a good fit for most women.

For most women their desire is to be at home with their children. Homeschooling is becoming more popular. More people are choosing to homeschool their children instead of sending their children to public schools. 

With the threat of school shootings, homeschooling is becoming a much safer option. If you homeschool your children, you can control the curriculum, their nutrition and all of their extracurricular activities.

The biggest concern that people have with homeschooling is the need to socialize their children. 

I do think that allowing your children to socialize with other children is important. It’s obvious that as human beings we are social beings. We are meant to live in a community and work together. 

Getting your children involved in extracurricular activities with other children is a way for them to socialize. 

You can socialize your children by taking them to a painting class or enrolling them in a soccer or dance program. 

Playing with the neighborhood kids outside or at the park is another way that children can socialize with other children.

With the rise in people deciding to homeschool their children, parents will need to work from home in order to homeschool their children.

This means parents will need an online job or they will need to run their own business and create a schedule that allows them to prioritize homeschooling their children. Living in the digital age it is now easier than ever to work from home. I think working differently means working from home especially for women who want to be homemakers. 

Being a homemaker can mean preparing meals, doing the grocery shopping, keeping an inventory of everything the household needs, organizing the mail, running errands, cleaning and doing laundry. 

The list can even be longer than that. If we want to prioritize being at home, then we need to work from home. 

With all the tools we have at our fingertips via the internet, there’s no reason we can’t work from home if the majority of our work can be done online.

There are obviously people who won’t be able to work from home. For example, people who work in warehouses, mechanic shops, restaurants, retail stores or hospitals. 

For women who want to be homemakers, working from home is essential. For myself personally, I want to focus on my creative outlets. I want to do work I find fulfilling. 

A big part of working differently is being able to create your own schedule and be location independent. 

Following your own dreams is so much better than building someone else’s. 

We only have one life to live and it’s important that we prioritize family over work.  With the internet and all of the digital tools the concept of going into an office for 8 hours a day five times a week is becoming more and more outdated. 

People all around the world are craving freedom. We want to make money on our own terms. We don’t want to be limited to an office and daily weekday commutes. 

We want more money and more freedom. We want to be able to have children and actually spend time with them. We don’t want just a paycheck. We want a life.

We don’t want a life where we are only living to pay bills. We want a life where we can thrive.

Time spent building someone else’s dream if you aren’t taking the time to build your own dreams. Spending forty hours of life every week to make someone else rich isn’t the only option we have.

Sure, it’s important to have a day job while you build your dream life on the side. Even more important is to actually take the time to build the life you want. 

There’s no need to support hustle culture or burnout. Instead, go for ease and effortlessness. Use your natural gifts, talents and abilities. 

What’s one way that you can work differently?

God sees you. He hears you and he wants you to succeed.

Sharlene Moulton