Improve Your Life
Avoid Physical Work

I just read a great article on how to improve your life.

The article is by Brian Kim who is one of my favorite writers on the Internet. He has a great website full of ideas on how to improve your life. The title of the article I am referring to is How to Maximize Your Life with a Job. Part of his article describes that having a job that is very physically demanding is not a very good idea because it will take all your energy. You will be too tired in the evenings and weekends to do things to improve your life.

This is so, so true.

When you are tired, beat, spent and sore the last thing you want to do is improve your life.

I have been working as a Civil Engineer for over 20 years. I spend all my time in an office. The work involves drawing, performing calculations on paper and computer, making calls, emailing, doing some research and going to a few meetings. I do occasionally go outside to look at things, but very infrequently.

Because I have energy at night, I have been able to work on this website. I have written some books. I read, help my kids with their homework, exercise, study and am nearly always doing things to my improve your life goals both mentally and physically.

With the economy the way it is, the company I work for has had to lay off lots of people. I was laid off for 4 days also. The people who have been laid off for months and months have been the survey crew workers who work outside.

In order to keep the civil engineers employed, we have been asked to go outside and do the surveying work a day or two each week.

I am willing to do this work. I know what to do. I prefer to keep working at my company at this time.

But this type of work is much more physically difficult than the office work I normally do.

Engineering work is much more mind intensive. It can be challenging and absorbing and rewarding. But it is not physically hard except when I was working lots of overtime and there were multiple deadlines to meet that caused a lot of stress.

So I have worked in the field once or twice a week during the last few months. Those days were very hard.

The work itself is not complicated. It is just hard physically. Mentally it is harder than what I am used to because I need to concentrate on it in order to do it right.

At the end of the day I am spent. The last thing I want to do is work on my website, or books or workout or read or study or even help my kids with their homework. I just want to eat as much junk food as I can, lay on the couch to watch TV and go to bed early.

The only thing that keeps me going in the afternoon is the thought of buying a huge bottle of soda and some doughnuts on the way home.

I can see that for people who do this type of work all the time that it is extremely difficult to improve your life and make any progress on any other goals.

Every aspect of the day is more difficult. I will just list the things in my day that add to the difficulty:

1) I have to get up earlier. I need to make a bigger breakfast because I will be hungrier. I need to drink coffee at home instead of at work because I need to go to the bathroom at home. There will be no time and nowhere to go to the bathroom when I am in the field.

2) I need to wear proper field clothing. Field clothes are much more expensive than office clothes. Good work boots cost more than dress shoes. I have worn out work boots that are sort of ok, but at the end of the day my feet are so tired and sore the last thing I want to do is go for my exercise walk. You need to bring extra clothes because the weather changes throughout the day. The field workers will have the proper clothes but I do not. I do not want to spend a lot of money on these types of clothes either. I do not know how much I will be doing this type of work. Why would I want to spend hundreds of dollars on clothes that I may not use?

3) I will spend most of the day on my feet rather than in a comfortable office chair.

4) I will be with someone else all day. I will have to get along with the person. Most of my office work is just me working alone.

5) There are no restrooms.

6) You cannot just take a break when you need to.

7) Some of the work is really boring.

8) You are being told what to do by someone who you normally tell what to do.

9) You have no free moments during the day to think of ways to improve your life.

10) You have no desk to put things on. You are in a van.

11) You have to eat your lunch off your lap rather than a table or desk.

12) There is no place to wash your hands.

13) You have to carry heavy stuff around.

14) You have to walk over uneven ground with the heavy stuff. I was very worried about turning my ankles, stumbling and falling.

15) I already have a bad right shoulder. I was very worried that I would do something that would hurt it more.

16) When the day the drive home seems to take forever. My feet ached and all I could think about was taking off my boots and putting my feet up.

17) I knew I would need more energy so I did not exercise the day before I was to go in the field. I did not exercise the day I went in the field. And I was not able to exercise the day after. I was still too tired and sore. Even the days after I noticed that I was weak and could not do a normal workout. This type of work just takes so much out of a person. I do count the work as exercise but it makes it impossible to do what I really want to do on my exercise routine. I cannot make any progress on my exercise improve your life goals when I am so tired, hurting an hungry for junk food.

The people who do this type of work normally make a lot less money than I do. They would really need to do something else in addition to this in order to make a decent living. How could they do something on-line, or a side business or another job? I don't think they could do much in the way of improve your life goals.

The only type of job that a person should get that is physically demanding is one that is very high paying. Maybe a surgeon, high paid tradesman, or independent contractor or even a stripper.

When you are thinking of what type of work to do when you are young or even older and thinking of making a change, make sure it is not physically demanding if you want to have time and energy to improve your life.

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