Midweek Musings… Fitting into the 'system'

A cat, a boy and a dog. All part of the system.

Bit of a late week midweek musing this week. It's been a few weeks since my last musing post and I've missed it. It's not that I've had nothing to muse about, far from it in fact. It's had more to do with no time, and being too exhausted to even think about typing up a little post by the time the day's jobs are done. So anyway, late week musing this week. Enjoy.

For a lot of years now, I have wondered why things are the way they are. It probably started for me when I was working full time in an industry that didn't suit me at all, when all I really wanted to be doing was something outside - running, riding a bike, riding a horse. And I found myself stuck in stuffy offices doing boring work that really, in the scheme of things, didn't matter. 

I'm all about finding meaning in what I do (I wrote a little post about that some time ago). And working as an auditor and an accountant really didn't strike me as being meaningful. I would prepare financial statements, write management reports, make recommendations, and often have to print it all off, bind it up and send it off the the end recipient. Knowing full well that it would not be read, would barely be looked at, and would be stuffed away in a drawer somewhere in case anyone higher up ever came asking questions. 

It was pretty unfulfilling. It was pretty frustrating. And I wondered to myself repeatedly why I was wasting my life doing this. But still, people employed me to do it, they deemed it important, I was paid for it reasonably well. It was not hugely demanding on my resources, mental or physical. It was just demanding on my time. At around the 10 year mark of working like this, I took myself off to career counselling to try and work out what was wrong with me. Why everyone else around me seemed so content with this work situation. I wouldn't say happy, looking around my colleagues I didn't see much overt happiness on display. Perhaps more of an acceptance of how things were.

And I wondered why it was like this? Who decided that working hours are 8:30am to 5pm, or 5:30pm (if not longer). Who decided that you have to wear the corporate attire, that for women generally involves high heels to some degree and totally inappropriate clothing? I mean really. My husband used to wear a tie to his job (also accounting) and routinely referred to it as his 'bib' for the benefit of our little one. William's bib, Dada's bib. I suppose we're a bit similar in our thoughts on this topic, which is to be expected. So wearing uncomfortable clothes, to a job I didn't find any meaning in doing, but which was necessary to pay for rent and bills and new bikes. As much as I questioned it, I couldn't see a way to break free. It is the system we live in. It is just how it is.

It goes so much deeper than that. The employment side of things is just one little piece of the puzzle. There is also the education system, the financial system, the government welfare system, the health system… goodness, the mere thought of dealing with all those systems is enough to make me think about living in a cave. You think I'm joking. I'm not. I wonder with amazement about people who live outside 'the system'.

And I know there are benefits to living within 'the system' - we get roads (more than we need), we get health care (do we? really? I'm not convinced..), we get schools and hospitals and police forces. We get told what the rules are, and we think that by having a choice in the elected government of the day, that we have some sort of say, some input of some kind into what happens in the system.

I was born into this world as a free agent. Nowhere along the line did someone official come along and say to little me 'just sign here on the dotted line, it's standard procedure, just so that you agree to abide by the system'. Nope, that did not happen. We just accept, we are socialised into the system and by the time we finish school, if we're still capable in any way of independent thought, we generally drive ourselves to distraction trying to find ways around the system while still living within it. I don't think that is the norm though. I think most people are so caught up in the system, so totally convinced that it is the right way, the only way, that the mere thought of people living differently sparks anger and outrage. Sometimes curiosity, but in my humble observations of humans, in the parts I've seen at least, there is a strong element of 'if it's different, it's bad'.

I know which system I belong in. It is the system whereby the earth spins around on it's axis every 24 hours, and around the sun every 365 days, give or take. It is the system where the moon waxes and wanes, is full and is new, and where the tides rise and fall. It is the system that see's the intensity of summer gradually replaced with the quiet of winter, only to find itself careering head-first into summer again, all too quickly. It is the system where women instinctively know how to birth their baby, with the help of other women. It is the system where the human body is supported to heal itself. It is the system where children are educated by the family, and the family is important, as is community. Really, really important. It is the system where my own body knows just what to do, as it always has and always will, if only I stop my mind from getting in the way.

That is the system I was truly born into. The rest? I'm not so sure about.