To think I'm not made for modern life?

[thesoftlife]

And in fact, none of us are. It's so miserable.

Dragging myself out of bed when it's pitch black and freezing, putting the light on to get ready at 6:30am, scoffing down some microwave porridge and instant coffee to then sit in traffic. Get to work for 8am, sitting on uncomfortable seats under fluorescent light with strangers, being made to sit in one spot inside all day. Drive home in the dark, eat dinner, watch TV and go on social media as it's too cold and dark to want to do anything else.

I just find myself longing for a quieter, softer life where my time is spent with family and a local community, and instead of the clock and deadlines my time is marked by the sun rises and sunsets and season changes. As I got ready this morning I just felt like this isn't what we're made for. Lighthearted, kinda.

I read this article recently. What a life! They are so connected to the natural world around them, but on balance I think I'd rather have my boring office job, central heating and medical care.

I think you need to start drinking decent coffee.

Yup, this. If it's bad now, it could have been much, much worse a couple of centuries ago.

I agree. A lot of people never stop to think, what’s the point of all this? They just blindly trudge through life. An awful lot of life is pointless. I get through by walking outside every day & doing a lot of exercise. I mostly wfh, so this makes it easier. I hated commuting to an office in London every day.

People saying they would rather have modern life than no central heating or medicine are taking it to the extreme.
It's perfectly possible to still have certain conveniences like plumbing etc. without working all hours in an unnatural environment staring at boring spreadsheets to pay for it.
The modern world of office work is soul destroying in many ways: your time scheduled to suit someone else, constant staring at screens, office politics, endless meetings about bullshit and unrealistic targets etc.

The fact that there is very little balance in our lives, that living more simply by having or doing less stuff is looked down upon, and so much of the focus is on achieving more and acquiring new stuff is unsustainable. And questioning this relentless push is ridiculed as lazy or unmotivated.

I'm all for work and modern conveniences like electricity and indoor plumbing and travel and choices for women.

I think I draw the line some time in the early 1990s when the internet was invented. Sure, I take advantage of it like most people (to some extent) but I think it is a scourge, ultimately, and the downsides far outweigh the upsides.

Same

So you want to be rich enough to do what you want?
me too…

I mean, you don't have to watch TV or scroll through social media. There are other things to do that are less vacuous. Only you can change your life.

Honestly I’m not trying to be flippant as obviously we all need to pay bills but I’ve reached a stage where I just think time is a massive luxury . I’d actually prefer less money now and more time … life is short . My job is “part-time” but v v full on and creeps into other areas tbh . Life is short .

Nope, I work probably just as hard as my ancestors did

Just because I'm a modern woman it may have bought me what LOOKS like agency and freedom from the outside but is really just another form of straight jacket 🤷‍♀️

I have the luxury of working 2 jobs and now paying 76% of our joint income for our mortgage

Modern life is HELLZ , this 'freedom and agency' is what the grossest lie of rampant unfettered capitalism

I worked 80 hour weeks during the pandemic to make some friend of Boris's obscenely rich providing PPE that was useless - whereupon they then fucked off to live the rest of their life quaffing champagne and oysters

THEY.FUCKED.US

never have I had so little time, never has my house been this cold, never have I been SO AFRAID for my children and other peoples children

I'm glad to hear I'm not alone! I just wish I could do something practical about it, but I'm not sure what.

I'm only 29, and have spent most of my 20s trying to figure out how to make a life that I don't dread waking up in the morning for. I have made some progress, I've gone from an office job in central London with a 2 hour commute working in marketing to training to be a speech and language therapist. If I have to work in this modern world, at least it will be something rewarding.

A few have you have mentioned working from home, which I did do in my previous role a few days a week but I found it intrusive and stressful in its own way. It felt like work encroached on my home and private life and the boundaries became blurred.

I said this very thing to DH this morning after a horrible stressful morning. I just want it all to go away at the moment.

YANBU op. Modern life might have peaked before the millennium:

https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/401216/global-rise-unhappiness.aspx

I’ve started thinking about how to escape it all too.

I just feel that there should be more of an equal life/work balance. Wish there was some way a full time working week was for example 3 days instead of 5. A couple of hundred years ago, the working classes worked most 7 days a week. Then at some point in the mid 1900’s, this went down to 5 days, and I now think we’re due another reduction in our working week!

@HeavenCANTwait well that was a dramatic post. I doubt that you work as hard as your ancestors.

Exactly this!

I don't particularly mind getting up in the dark. I don't like grey days but dark mornings / evenings don't bother me.

I don't feel remotely wistful about times past, with no heating and modern conveniences.

Agree agree agree! Look up "Bullshit job" theory too. I feel like our society is just geared towards making rich people richer while a lot of us just work to live, desperately trying to climb the ladder so we can buy that slightly better car or have that slightly nicer holiday or whatever material thing some marketing department has decreed should be important to us, in order to keep our noses to the grindstone. So much of that stuff just doesn't really matter - we trade the majority of our waking lives, for the entirety of the best, healthiest years of our lives, for what? We've become so disconnected from each other, from nature, from our food chain, the seasonal shifts. We have to pay strangers to raise our tiny children because we're stuck in an office all day. We've largely lost "the village". It's something I think about all the time and have done since I graduated university two decades ago and saw all these years of work looming ahead of me.

I guess the answer is to try to find joy in the small things, carve out as much time as possible for things that actually matter, slow down if you can - and want to. I have worked jobs before that I enjoyed and felt were meaningful and useful at least on some level - that helps. Although the pay was terrible and there was no job security (charity sector). Maybe at some point society as a whole will get so burned out that things will shift. Maybe a universal basic income would actually be a good thing? And a society where you will be looked after well by the state if you get sick or old, regardless of how much you earned (for "the man") during your lifetime.

And to those saying "well I'm sure you'd love being a medieval peasant" etc - we live in the most amazing time in human history, recent exponential advancements in pretty much everything should surely make it possible for a pleasant and relatively easy life for all? Do we really need hundreds of choices of almost identical washing machines - we don't have to go bang our laundry with rocks down by the river any more! What was actually the point of all that progress? Unfortunately that doesn't make rich old men richer, so...

And thus endeth my soapbox rant (sorry!).

Not for me! I WFH 2 days a week & can find it quite hard in winter, house gets in on me, I notice everything that needs doing.

It's still beneficial in other ways but my on-site days are invaluable for my other, better version of me!

Agreed. I've been working on drastic changes to make it happen. Bought a bus and turned it into a tiny home. Got a remote work job so I can go anywhere. Looking for land to grow our own food. It's been slow moving with chronic illness and insanely high prices, etc. but I just can't do the normal rat race thing.

I do recommend freshly ground coffee though, I usually get it all ready the night before so all I have to do is brew it in the morning. I use a moka pot and it's just lovely and makes everything better. French press is easy too.

Exactly this. So many all or nothing replies here. But not wanting to be a worker drone pushing our kids through the sausage factory, doesn't mean we have to go back to dying in childbirth and sending our kids down the mines .

The modern world of office work is soul destroying in many ways: your time scheduled to suit someone else, constant staring at screens, office politics, endless meetings about bullshit and unrealistic targets etc.

Perhaps some jobs are like this.
But not all; not even the majority.

If they are, we have more agency than ever to change them.

My role has a lot of meetings, a lot of admin, and a lot of team management. I can have very frustrating days! But I love the basis of what I do, the autonomy I have to make decisions & genuinely do beneficial work.

It's so defeatist thinking like this. Not all options are open to everyone, but there's always something you can change.

A few have you have mentioned working from home, which I did do in my previous role a few days a week but I found it intrusive and stressful in its own way. It felt like work encroached on my home and private life and the boundaries became blurred.

Yes, commuting is crap but I don’t particularly love wfh either. Makes me feel quite stale. My ideal would be a ten to twenty minute walk to work or, at the other extreme, getting out and about to different places during the week.

That's how society has got you thinking. And it's wrong.

No-one was meant to be a wage-slave, least of all women.

That generation wanted it, because they didn't have it.

But now it's gone too far the other way, and we are robots for million pound companies that will replace us without a second thought.

People are the supply chain.

Totally agree and while I hate commuting as much as the next person I think people need to get a grip a bit when they go on about how awful modern life is.

For most people throughout most of history (particularly women) life has mainly been brutal, unfulfilling, hard, dangerous and short. Nothing wrong with questioning the orthodoxy of modern capitalism but let’s keep this in perspective.