Four years ago, I started a rock & roll approach to work, but without the fame, money, sex and drugs – just the hours. I’d work intensely for days, doing overnights in the office, sleeping two to four hours a day, working weekends, drowning in coffee, my mornings dawning in the evenings and my nights setting in the afternoon.
It was intense, but it bought its own kind of freedom. After projects, I’d get days full of freedom before the next burst. The unusual hours brought a level of uncertainty and freshness to my life, I never knew what to expect and I became addicted to that last-minute adrenal rush all workaholics know.
Until I started counting the dinners I had to cancel because of my last-minute schedules. Until I noticed the deep, dark shadows below my eyes weren’t going away. The stomach pains that I never had before. My ability to stay awake without sleep, and thus work, dwindling, shorter and shorter. How I could never plan my life with certainty because I never knew when a client needed something at the last moment (and needing it yesterday). And the dismal amounts of money in my bank account that could only keep me from project to project.
I needed a change. I needed regularity. I needed my life back.
And for the last two years, I’ve had that. I’ve had the rare (in Singapore, at least) chance to knock off almost everyday at work, at the time that everyone knocks off on.
But sometimes, sometimes that rock and roller wannabe inside me roars for me to throw aside all schedules, all locks, chains, duties and deadlines, and claim the night – let tomorrow be damned.
It can be a real struggle sometimes.