wildoxgib.com

The man cannot complain
I am currently working to a “Summer Hours” schedule at work. During the summer months, we start work at 8:00am, and we finish at 2:30pm! This is just awesome for me! At 2:30pm I head-off to my rowing club and relax by the pool with my family. I am so blessed!

In terms of me regaining my vibe, and scheduling some rest and relaxation, this deal is just the ticket. “Summer hours” is an intense, straight-though work shift that most of Gibraltar’s government employees and agents adhere to over the summer. It rally is a redundant concept that is a hangover from the past. During the summer it can get quite warm here, so it made sense (at the time!) to start early and finish-off before the hat got turned up a few notches. Nowadays we have air-conditioning. We do not need summer hours, however this practice has become so ingrained in our culture that heaven help the poor politician who tries to scrap the 8:00AM-2:30PM fest for a more 9:00AM-5:30PM go at the daily grind.

When habits become cultural.

Sow a thought, and you will reap an action
Sow an action, and you will reap a habit
Sow a habit, and you will reap a character
Sow a character, and you will reap a destiny

If you repeat something for long enough it will become cultural - an assumed component of collective identity. It is funny how history can become the cradle of irrelevance, nurturing attitudes and practices that are anachronistic at best, yet heaven help the poor soul who gets desperate enough to challenge the status quo.

I am learning that ’summer hours’ has taken for me a much broader meaning than a convenient schedule to avoid discomfort. There are areas in my life and heart where I have settled for a ’summer hours’ deal and I have chosen convenience and comfort in order to avoid the payment of a price to reap a harvest.

Much as I love lying at the poolside, feeling the mediterranean breeze kissing my tanned skin, and lazily tracking the clouds as they travel the expanse of the sky, I feel a word rising within me in an ominous challenge to my state of bliss:

He who observes the wind will not sow,
And he who regards the clouds will not reap.
-Ecclesiastes 11:4

What areas of ’summer hours’ are you harbouring today? It’s time to get desperate and challenge the status quo!

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