more to life than creature-comforts allow

Statements like ‘I wish this day would just go faster’ or ‘Why can’t it just be 5 o’clock?’ are typical of my office and I’m left questioning if we even realise that we are wishing our lives away. You know that if you say something along those lines you will meet people where they’re at; its common ground here, this mutual disdain for all things fabric and the admin that results from customers interest therein. The sad reality is that none of us actually wish for life to go any faster; we just want to enjoy our day rather than being stuck in a restricted space with beige walls, surrounded by partitions and people and enduring the torture of the facilities manager who secretly wants to kill us all by means of a slow, freezing, death-by-air-conditioner.
How many people simply tolerate a job they hate in order to maintain a lifestyle that is comfortable? I spoke to an old friend last night who recently spent a month in rural Rwanda. Although he acknowledged that sleeping on a hard floor of a mud hut and eating ‘stodge’ for 4 weeks straight wasn’t preferential, he truly came to appreciate the blessings that go unnoticed when we get so caught up in life as we know it and how things ‘should’ be. If I think back to times when I have been the happiest, it had very little to do with circumstances and everything to do with how I chose to feel. In saying that, I do still choose to be in a job that brings minimal personal satisfaction, but my reassurance lies in the plan to escape the confines of this desk-prison and one day embrace a career that I have chosen rather than merely accept.