Some borders, segregations, and divisions on earth are formed naturally, by geography. But others are entirely man-made. They are essentially imaginary lines, imposed on human beings. Keeping people in, keeping people out.
A great deal of time, money, resources, and emotions are wasted defending these arbitrary concepts. Millions of invaluable human lives have been lost to protect something nonexistent.
Whereas in reality, life is essentially holistic; interconnected intimately, and explicable only by reference to the whole. Fortunately, human beings are steadily realizing that borders, boundaries, and divisions are not the solution. Countries, religions, cultures, etc. are now inclined toward merging, converging, and creating a unified world with no divisions.
There is a lot of talk about a world without borders, a one-world government, thus pushing the limits of nationality, creed, and culture toward humanity. The personal lives of people have not remained untouched by this positive spiral and they are now looking at life holistically.
Worklife is now just Life
Covid-19 pandemic has made working from home the new normal. Work from home is not new, but the world has never seen it at its current scale. The concept of work-life balance is losing its grip, now it’s just life… one whole, unified, and intimately interconnected life!
Work, which has always been a part of life, though segregated, is now merging with personal life. Work from home has created a conducive atmosphere for living in one picture. Living scattered along the lines of my personal life, my family life, my life with peer groups, life with my girlfriend, life with my parents, and so on is beginning to fade.
People are basically understanding what work means to them working from home. They are better understanding their own needs and at the same time getting more accomplished at work.
For instance, when you are in office, you work competitively with others, you are in a race. You are bothered about what our colleague is doing, what he is wearing, what he has got, which house he is moving to, what are his vacation plans…
Once you cut off from this peer pressure, you become attentive to yourself, you know what’s important to you. For instance, say, you like gardening, you find time for gardening, if you like to be with your family, you can be with your family.
The external pressure telling you that you are lagging behind has been put to rest in the immediacy of doing what you love and the joy it gives you
Instead of work becoming pressure, work becomes a joy when you can work from your home. Your children and other family members know what work you do, the nature of your work which was hitherto a mystery. They understand you more, instead of being completely off-limits for what you work, who you are as an employee, what is there in life, is accessible to them.
The need and benefits of work from home can also be seen in the data. With 77% of employees wanting to continue remote work post-pandemic, and 65% saying their productivity has increased since working from home.
A survey in May 2020 showed that 55% of workers in the United States want a mixture of home and office work. In the UK, businesses are expecting the percentage of employees working from home to double, from 18% pre-pandemic to 37% post-pandemic.
Another survey in 2019 by AIRtasker found that working from home increases productivity and leads to healthier lifestyles.
Thanks to companies like Google, Amazon and others that have made possible working from home for millions with their cloud services, technology infrastructure like aws, etc. As a result, everyone across the world can happily live and now they are living more fulfillingly.
Working from home will be very much a part of post-COVID world. So the sooner employers think of the implications of a home-based workforce, the better businesses will be positioned when the pandemic is over.
As humanity continues to broaden its perception of life, Philosophy of coexistence can help human beings look at life holistically instead of dividing it into compartments. Afterall, each compartment is interconnected. Nothing can be studied or understood in isolation and all reality is essentially coexistence. Work from home is now making it feasible for many human beings to look at the whole picture of life.
Popular Belief: Don’t mix work life and personal life
Supported by: These recent articles by vantagecircle and charityjob talk in favour of keeping work life and personal life separate.
Existential Reality Check: A Human being himself is in coexistence with all the other things on the planet. He cannot separate himself from everything else and think of existing. Within human beings, his whole life is one. You cannot talk of his work life, personal life or social life. They’re all artificial constructs given by language, culture, and society.
Basically, every human being exists in the present moment and the whole of his existence is connected with everything else. As an individual human being has the only purpose to be resolved. In a family unit, he has the purpose of existence. Being in the family, understanding his relationship with other human beings, and a group of such families living in society is what human existence is all about.
