When you come to the realization that the life you are living is actually only an exercise in survival, you know that it’s time that you stopped and thought it over. When you know that you’ve always had plans for your life…but all for tomorrow, you perhaps need to grab them and drag them into the present before it is too late.
When my back gave way a few months ago, the doctor said that I’d have to take a complete break at least for 3 months. At first I was disappointed, but as I settled into this compulsory break, I realized that the life I had been leading for the past years was hardly a life that I had ever intended to lead in the first place.
While I was busy running around 9 to 6, I had lost out on watching my daughter’s first baby steps. My house was in a mess and quite honestly; my professional life wasn’t going great shakes either. I was doing a job solely for the salary that was coming into my bank account at the end of every month. The beginning of each day was just another exercise in futility and the end of it was sheer exhaustion. The first signs of the fact that I was beginning to hate what I was doing was when I began to look forward to weekends. Come Monday morning and I’d already be looking forward to Saturday.
Sitting at home and giving myself a break was something which I had often imagined myself doing, but certainly not so soon, and not under such painful circumstances either. At first, I was afraid I was going to get bored. But as time progressed, I realized that I loved working from home. My office had been wonderfully supportive and had allowed me to work from home. That is the benefit of being in a profession like writing. You can write anytime, anywhere, on a computer, via SMS, on a piece of a scrap paper. The biggest advantage was that I cut off about 4 hours of travel from my life. Four precious hours of the day in which I would stamp, scream, sweat and end up angry and tired.
It’s been a few months now, and in a way I am glad that my back gave way. It was nature’s way of telling me that my life was going past me when I was at work 9 to 6 and it was time to take a break. Working from home gave me the option of choosing what I had to do…and it was a better paying option too since I was not bound to one place. And of course, while I was recovering, I could actually spend time with my baby and watch her grow.
Today, there are websites like Chillibreeze.com, which bring together writers of various genres and provide them with a platform where they can share their work and ideas and get work suited to their talents. In fact, according to Dr. Nishi Viswanathan, Chief Content Officer, Chillibreeze.com, there is no difference in the quality of work submitted from home versus that done from the office. “In fact, you can accomplish a lot more”, she says. “Thorough professionals will do well in both set ups. As for the efficiency levels, sometimes it is easy to get carried away by tasks such as cooking, entertaining guests and other household chores, but the advantage of freelancing is that you can tackle all those jobs and then return to your computer to complete your assignment.”
So why are employers hesitant to offer work-from-home options in cases where it is absolutely feasible? Answers Dr. Viswanathan, “The problem might be the perception most people have about work-from-home jobs. Telecommute jobs have been associated with tasks such as data entry, transcription etc., so when software engineers want to work from home, their managers are obviously a little reluctant. Plus, there is no telling how a particular person will handle work-from-home responsibilities. It could be a major success or an absolute disaster. Managers just don't want to take the risk. However, I believe that this is changing. And I hope Chillibreeze is able to bring about a work-from-home revolution in India.”
I quite agree with Dr. Viswanathan. The possibilities are endless-you just have to look for them. And like every other job, this is too one that is full of opportunities and challenges. You are on your own. You are your own client servicing person, accountant as well as the person who has to do the dirty job of collecting payments at the end of the month.
Telecommuting is a new challenge for me. And at the same time, I am the master of my own time. I can take a break and go for a walk when I want to, go for a swim at leisure, take care of my mind, body, and of what I eat and what meals I give my family. What a contrast this life is from the one I was leading earlier!
This is a mistake most of us make. We make our jobs our life. We run around to make it to the muster, and then we run around to meet a deadline. We wolf down our lunch in a few minutes and now we have even invented power lunches where we discuss business over lunch. When did the art of taking a break become redundant? When did we stop living and start running in search of nothing in particular? Honestly, for me, working from home is the best prescription the doctor ordered and I am going to abide by it, simply because this is perhaps the first time in a long, long time I have understood what it means to live life to the fullest. It is not work when you do it from home!
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—About our writer:
Sunila Karir lives in Virar, a small, beautiful little town just north of the bustling city of Mumbai. She mostly writes and reads and when she is not doing that, she dreams of the day when she can afford a gourmet chef for her kitchen.
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