10 aug Leave that nine to five upon the shelf,

For the ‘King of Pop’ fans this particular sentence rings a bell .. Confessions: I obviously didn’t make it up myself. But hey, as we say in Dutch: ‘Better stolen wisely, than badly invented yourself’. MJ is helping me writing this article. I’ve let the madness in his music get to me.

Life ain’t so bad at all .. If you live it off the wall

Needless to say, but my nine to five has been on the shelf since the beginning of this year and guess what, I’m enjoying myself. Off the wall. Highly unusual. Bizarre, as certain bystanders describe it. “Living crazy, that’s the only way. Sooo tonight, gotta leave that nine to five upon the shelf, and just enjoy yourself” .. I have let the fool loose deep inside my soul and while writing this article, the song is on repeat and I can’t possibly sit still. “Groove … ”

Better do it now, before you get too old

There’s no one who’s gonna put you down, or do you catch yourself thinking otherwise? If so, MJ would sing to you that you’ve gotta straighten up your act and boogie down! Way too many times I’ve came across the mindset that if you can’t hang with the nine to five feelin’, there ain’t no room for you in this employment part of town. Well guess what, the worlds changing. Matter of fact, the world needs a change!

To wrap your old-fashioned mind around it,

Newsflash, in 1979 the ‘Off the Wall’ solo studio album was published .. So I guess that’s it for the old-fashioned mindset argument. Lots of songs have been published ever since. So, back then they already knew or carried an opinion about the nine to five. “Would you want to work parttime?”, I asked him. “Well, if I would earn the same amount of money .. Yes!”, he replied. “I would love to work remote, but that wouldn’t be possible”, she told me and I just sat there and blinked in perplexity. Bottom line: people just shrug of the idea way too fast. Their brain being held hostage by way too many objections, old-fashioned arguments or limiting believes.

Take the chance and do it,

“Dooo-oooo-oooh, what you want to do!”, MJ sings with his high pitched voice. But from there I have to correct the one and only King of Pop, I guess. Because there are rules, but hey .. In the end it’s still up to you. The mind-knotting question is: ‘Do you want it badly enough?’, and if so, prepare yourself for the dialogue. I’ve thought about the following question: “Why do we have to work forty hours a week?” many times and I added the productivity question mark to it. As humanity we want more and more and more, seven days a week, a delivery in ten minutes or within twenty-four hours. And on the other hand, humanity is also great at getting used to things.

Growing used to it,

I guess what I’m trying to say, in a stupid roundabout way, is that not everyone wants to work remote or parttime or flexible or wants to go on a sabbatical. Not everyone’s the same. A growing awareness of the fact that there is more in life than work, is a fact. We are surrounded by distractions that create certain cravings and demand creativity. An out of the box way of thinking. Says the individual that loved a forty, fifty even sixty hour workweek for a long time. To each its own, right?

Just have the g**damn dialogue and figure out a way, that’s my advice!