My father recently asked me how I was doing. I said, “Okay lang”. How else could I have answered it?
He replied and said with conviction that if I was having a hard time balancing work and grad school, I can give up my job. It was supposed to make me feel better. I know he said it because it was unusual for me to wake up at 5AM to begin with my work so I can go out with them while they are in Manila.
He might have also said it because of my overall aura, my eye bags, and sometimes my mood. So you see, working from home sounds like the heaven that it is: you can avoid the life-threatening Manila traffic, create your own work schedules, go out with friends almost anytime, and work even from a thousand miles away.
Yet, even heaven has its walls and gates. Working from home (WFH) has its own serious disadvantages. If you have anxiety like me, it might not play too well for you as well. I can enumerate some risks:
1. WFH is not a traditional job format. It is a “millennial” compromise and response to the ever-changing demands of several industries. It would be hard to explain to your Auntie, older cousins, and even other relatives what you do. Even peers of the same age who are not entirely familiar with it may mistake it as a simple “raket”. Others would just nod but to their mind they may be thinking, “Ah, freelancer siya”. Thing is, the descriptions of free-lancing and engaging in ‘rakets’ does not really do justice to what WFH means. To my mind, WFH is an umbrella term. So when you WFH, you can be working for an organization, freelancing, doing additional ‘rakets’, or everything. So as someone who is more detail-oriented and makes the effort to understand things, it can sometimes be tiring to hear even the most meager comment on the job. Yet, it can be also really tiring and disappointing to just assume that everyone will think the way you do, and act with a heart the same as yours.
So what do I do? In times when I get asked what I do, I take a deep breath and begin with, “Ah, I write for a digital marketing startup”. On some days though, I just say, “I write blogs.” On worst days days I just say, “I write”.
2. WFH gives you freedom. I mean, a whole shit-pile of freedom. Yes, it has life-changing benefits especially when you work under a company as understanding and generous as mine (thank God, I got lucky on this one. More of that later). However, dealing with anxiety takes a great deal especially when you really don’t need to be physically somewhere to get your job done. For one, waking up is a serious challenge. Setting up a routine, is even harder. Let me tell you why.
I am not the most disciplined person, I will have to admit. I am a night owl, I wake up at noon sometimes. My brain functions best, I believe, from 10PM to 5AM max. My class schedules are no problem since they are at night. Sure, I can easily make a routine out of this. Then the rest of my responsibilities come in. On some days I attend meetings for our non-profit at 8AM, my parents ask me to go on meetings at 9AM, and establishments (govt agencies, school offices) are open and better-serving on early times. This may sound like an easy problem but it is not especially when my body has already adapted to how I do my work. I am on the process of setting a routine, though. And recently I have been consistenly waking up at 4AM, then sleeping again by 10AM. I wake up by 2PM to prep for my classes, then go to sleep by 1AM. It’s not the best but it works for my work and breakdown schedules.
3. WFH also gives you the freedom to really push your deadlines even beyond their deadliest deadlines. Yeah, this is where my problem lies. Since undergrad I have submitted outputs in time. It was during the first half of 2018, my last semester in university, when I noticed by inconsiderable passion for finishing my work, or my lack thereof.
I remember not having enough drive to finish my thesis. I think it cost me the ‘best thesis’ award hahahahahahaha. My Professor said so, anyway, just in case you didn’t know. Moving forward, I identified myself as burn out. One who just fleets with the wind, letting days go by and not really minding if she will be wiped from the face of the world (permanently) today. Days were no longer counted by hours, they were only two parts of the day: morning and night. I sleep in the morning, I work at night. I think a lot during the in-betweens.
You see, as a 22-year-old, I may have had a lot on my plate. My hormones and emotions which have gone wrong (I have PCOS, my pills also affect it), my classes with approximately 600 pages of readings weekly, my job with at least 6,000 words to be written per week, the non-profit with communications materials needed at hand, bills, plates in the sink, hair on the bathroom floor, cockroaches in dark corners, my thoughts in dark corners, the heavy Manila traffic, my parents, oh my beloved parents. On top of all these is the cherry on top, the irrational fear of never being enough.
Hope it did not sound that bad, I think they aren’t. I have stopped accepting other tasks offered to me. I started accepting the fact that I could no longer do it all. It makes me sad that the same tasks I did not have to worry about when I was in college actually and vividly worries me now. I tell myself to be patient with me. So far I am succeeding, but for how long?
4. WFH means constantly working on yourself, at your own pace. So, my father’s offer still stands. I know I’ll take it when I pursue law, but not now. I actually like what I’m doing. I guess, if not for my anxiety, the feeling of being burnt out and not being good enough, I would be doing so much more. A person has limits though, and I guess this really is mine. It took me months to accept this. Maybe because in UP, we were taught that we could be anything we wanted to be, in honor and excellence. I strongly believed this. I still do. But maybe it is indeed true that honor also means honoring your own thoughts and your efforts.
Even when it is a painful thing to admit, yes, I should admit that you are enough. It is painful not because I aim to dwell on the negatives, but because I even had to doubt and reaffirm myself for so many times.
I am currently struggling with my backlogs. I have so many. brb
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