What if we've got it all wrong?

To be honest I think we in the West have got it all wrong - with this work stuff. Why do we work so hard all hours of the day? Why do we do jobs that don't really make us happy? I understand the economic necessity for it sometimes, when we have children to feed and clothe, 'you take what you can get', its one of my mottos in life. But why do we do it so much, why to we spend so many hours in our day sat at a computer, engaging with no-one and call it work. This is the very reason I have not written for so long - I have been physically unable because typing has been so painful to my hand after years of using a cramped keyboard on a laptop for years; repetitive strain injury. I mean come on - repetitive strain of sitting in front of a computer working, repetitive strain of working. Don't we all feel it or is it just me? I have been at privileged times in my life the one who loves her job, many times in fact. I have always thought how proposterous it is that people spend 8+ hours of their day doing something that is not 'them' or doesn't make them happy and I have refused to do that for the most part. If I am going to spend 8 hours of my precious time per day doing something I am sure as hell doing to do something that is in line with who I am.

I am sure we've got it all wrong. We spend too much time working, too much time travelling to work doing nothing constructive, too much time away from our loved ones and children, for what - to move things around a computer screen, send some electronic mail to someone instead of getting up and talking to them instead? Really? Is that worth it? Is it worth missing out on time with those you love to do that? Other cultures do it better than us, for them to sit spending time just 'being' with people, building relationship, drinking tea, catching up, is part of work, part of a valuable way to spend time.

I admit and believe that mankind was designed to do some work of some kind, and I am beginning to wonder if men were designed to do that more than women. I am a feminist, I hope, but I am beginning to observe that men get alot more sense of worth for themselves from what they DO all day, whereas women can get sufficient satisfaction from who they ARE. Maybe I am generalising, but fight me on this then men - do you do what you do away from your families so much because you think it is the only way to prove you are worth something? Is that true for any of us? How many of us really believe that we are worth something if we did nothing? Do I? I say I do but do I really believe and practice that in my heart and life? Do we really know that we are human beings not human doings?