The Fast Forward Life- Skipping Work and Getting Paid

Every day we trade our time for money.  Most of us would prefer the time we’re working to go a little bit faster.  What if you could fast forward the working portion of your day?  Wait. Wait. I know you’re probably thinking me starting off an article with “What if…” is a sure fire way to know the article is going to be about some hypothetical nonsense.  But, would you do it?  Would you fast forward work?

Wait, again. Remember when I said ‘Wait. Wait.’ a minute ago? You probably thought that meant this article wasn’t going to be a hypothetical thought experiment, and my intro just made it SEEM like it was, but then I just ignored your potential concern and kept going.

Let’s move on.

“Hell, yeah. Mr. Burrito Bowl, we love your articles and of course we’d fast forward work.” – you.

Okay.  First, Thank you, and please don’t swear.  My mother reads these.  Secondly, it’s more complicated than simply fast forwarding through work no questions asked.  In other words, there will be questions.

So you want to do that, huh?  You want to blink and time go from 9am to 5pm.  Maybe we fast forward your commute while we’re at it. Sure, you wouldn’t have to put up with any of the pain or hassle of work and you’d still get paid, but your life would fly by.

Would you make that trade? – OR- Would you opt to physically live through the monotony of everyday existence, even the work parts?

Before we really get into it, I did not steal this idea from the hit Adam Sandler movie Click.

See? Completely different.

I actually got the idea from a Paula Pant tweet. Truth be told, I got the idea from my response to a Paula Pant tweet.  I digress.  Here is the tweet itself, complete with my typo.

I add this in here to say you should be following both of us on Twitter.  Back to the article at hand.

If you love your career this is an asinine trade.  A lot of nerds people find meaning and purpose in their careers.  It becomes a lot more tempting if you spend most of your day wishing for the clock to tick faster.  Work can be a huge pain in the ass, but just skipping that portion of our day feels like we’re robbing ourselves of our most precious resource- time.

It’s a weird conundrum- Almost nobody wants the work portion of their day to move slower, but do we REALLY want it to move faster? How much faster? Maybe it’s already moving at the perfect cadence and anything else would be less than ideal.

What if this was just how life is? Everybody gets to fast forward through their working hours.

How differently would you choose to spend the hours where you weren’t working?

Would you choose to skip greater amounts of time in order to pay for nicer things?  Maybe you’d decide you’re fine only being conscious for a few hours per day if it means you can buy a nicer car.

If you choose to fast forward four hours everyday you get a bicycle, eight hours everyday you get a Toyota, ten hours you get a BMW and twelve hours you get a Mercedes. If you fast forward sixteen hours per day you get a Lamborghini.  No matter how much you could accumulate it wouldn’t be worth it to fast forward all twenty-four hours.  So, at what point is the tradeoff no longer worth it?

Maybe you’d decide time spent awake is much more valuable than material possessions. 

Would you choose to only fast forward the bare minimum amount of hours everyday, indefinitely? -OR- Would you choose to fast forward a bunch of hours up front so that you could retire sooner and not have to fast forward ANY hours later?

If you’re on the hamster wheel of spending everything you earn then unfortunately you’re always going to be stuck fast forwarding huge portions of your life. But, if you save some of each paycheck, eventually you’ll be able to fast forward less time, and maybe stop fast forwarding time altogether.

A lot of us spend our days zoning out like cubicle zombies

It’s not quite the same as having our lives involuntarily put on fast forward, but it’s pretty close. If you’re spending all day looking up at the clock wishing for time to move faster then you need to do one of two things

1. Figure out how to enjoy your working days.
2. Figure out how to exit the workforce.

If you’re someone who doesn’t want to retire entirely, then it’s worth the effort it might take to find a way into a career you enjoy.  Maybe that means going back to school, or lowering your expenses so you can take a less stressful job.

If you’re someone who would just rather not do any job, then you need to figure out how to exit the workforce.

If you’re one of the millions of people who live like a cubicle zombie forty hours per week it’s worth giving some thought to why that is.  Why are you doing that for such huge portions of your life, and what can you do to change?

If you don’t have the type of job that stimulates you mentally, how can you change jobs to one that does?

If changing jobs isn’t feasible, how can you save up enough to eventually leave your job altogether?

Slow days and a fast life

Of course we can’t fast forward the working portion of our lives. That’s probably a good thing. I think a lot of people would fast forward too much and regret it. I don’t think we should take the deal, if it was offered. Life is so short and precious as it is. I think the trick is to learn to appreciate all aspects of life. The victory wouldn’t taste so sweet without the defeat. The Friday night elation wouldn’t be so…elating without the hours of hard work it took to get there.  You get the point.

There’s a strange tension between wanting each individual day to move faster while being sad with how quickly the years have gone by.  Almost all of us want more time on Earth, but at 5pm on a Friday few of us would want to go back to the previous Monday at 9am.

It’s tempting to put our brains on auto-pilot while we’re working, but try to resist the urge.  Much of our lives are made up of individually mundane moments.  Instead, lean into it.  Take the time to notice the world around you and how you’re interacting with it.  Don’t wish to fast forward life, it’ll go by fast enough.

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