If you're going up stairs and stop climbing because it's too much work, you'll never reach the top.. regardless of where you started.
I hear so much about 40 hours a week. People seem to think that this is an achievement and a goal but it's not. People seem to think that if you work 40 hours a week, about 20 percent of the time in a week, that you should be well off. I'll never understand that, so I'll explain why it's wrong in the best way I know how.
If I clock out after 40 hours a week, I will never be successful. I have a job, I go to school, I have family, and what ever personal matters go on in my week. With school, five days a week I have an alarm set to wake me up and get me to class. I have about 16 hours of school a week. Wow that sounds great right? Nope, because once I get out of class I have to study another crazy amount of hours. If I have a test within a week you can bet that I'll be sat in the library from the time I get out of class till the time I go to work or sleep, with the exception of eating if I'm feeling risky.
So what about work? I don't clock in for work but for 20 hours a week, even though it feels like 100 hours of stress. 20 hours a week? That's less than half of what I'm complaining about! Yeah that's right, but I also have school that I have to work for. So add 20 hours to 16 hours in class and you get 36 hours. Then the amount of time I spend studying a week? I'll let USA Today make that call with the average of 17 hours a week for college students. 36 and 17 is 53 hours a week. And I'll be honest when I say I wish I could get out of studying at 17 hours a week. Now add the rest of my duties in, or try and imagine mine by thinking of what else you do in a week.
At school, I might be one of the best out of my friend group with free time. My friends are always out studying or working. Adding up the hours of my week I got 53. That's still a 30 percent increase in work just from school and work. I'm lucky, most of my school is on loans (real lucky right?) so I don't have to work as hard right now. Some are out working 40 hour weeks while in school and I'll never imagine how they do it. What I'm sure of though is that what they aren't doing is saying, "Wow, 40 hours a week should be enough."
Many people will complain "but people have kids to get home to" or many other great arguments. My only counter argument would be right now why would I have a kid? What part of a kid sounds like less work? If I had a kid should I say that I deserve to work less? I can't possibly comprehend why people who are under a stressful work schedule who are trying to work themselves into a better place could possibly think to have a child. Maybe they think that it will make it easier to ask for less hours or a raise? That's only work too, you can't ask for a raise in school, trust me I've tried. I just need it to be a common understanding that having a child is more work, not less. I think that's a pretty easy statement to agree with.
Here's my advice to the 40 hour a week protestors and believers. Work your 40 hours. You will never move up, you might be able to stay stable, and you can go down in living standards. My better advice is to work more. Don't stop when you hit your quota. The real successful people in this world don't have a quota on how much work they could do in a week, they work and they don't stop. I don't get to clock out at 40 because if I do I'll fail, I won't move forward, and I'll never be happy.
