Sometimes I just wish I could go to work (‘the grass always looks greener on the other side’)

Sometimes I just wish I could go to work. Working from home, writing a dissertation, communicating with colleagues and supervisors via email, sometimes, just sucks.

The reality is that working from home, ‘being your own boss’, managing your own time has many advantages. It has inherent benefits that many people can only dream of. A lot of the time I feel very privileged and thankful for our current work situations. However it’s not a perfect life. Sometimes, just sometimes, I really (I mean REALLY) wish I could just go to work!

During my four weeks in Tanzania, whilst not ‘going to work’ in most people’s normal sense of the words, I was leaving my home (or guestroom) and going OUT to do my work. I had to leave on time, I travelled around, I met with people (people were even expecting me), I completed (or semi-completed!) tasks, and then at the end of the day I returned ‘home’. It was a change, it was nice, it felt normal.

Just as it’s easy for me, sometimes, to think that life in an office or on a bus or behind a bar might seem like the perfect job, the same is true of our work situation. I’m sure it is very easy for many people to think that what we do, our life, is far easier than theirs. Maybe in some ways it is, but to think that any other situation is perfect is ill informed.

Too many times have I seen someone’s life or heard their experiences and thought “Wow, aren’t they lucky”, only to later see or hear the full story – the private struggles and difficulties that make their life seem rather less appealing. We each face our own unique areas of sadness and joy in our daily lives. The real challenge is to engage with them and not just gaze at someone else’s life wishing it was ours.

So, in what areas of your life does the grass seem decidedly greener elsewhere?