Work and Your Social Life - 30in90 Lesson - Reaching Out
No longer working in a confined corporate cubicle world my social life has changed dramatically. What is interesting about corporate culture is how it effects your social life without you even realizing it. When you are forced to spend almost 50% of your time in the office, working on the same projects, working with the same people, it is sometimes hard to realize how dull your social life becomes.
Because of how long you spend with your coworkers, they soon become your friends. On top of that the company forces you to spend more time with them through company outings and team building. The truth, often times you have little in common with them other than work, which of course becomes the subject of choice when you go out for the post work pint. You soon start to realize that you try to watch the same tv shows, follow the same sports, and the same mind numbing gossip, just to have something in common to talk about. It is a sad state of affairs when your paycheck dictates who you surround yourself with.
It has been almost two months since I decided to become a freelancer, and truth be told I started to feel a sort of emptiness. There are still those true friends that are around, but at a point you do miss the daily interactions that were part of work life. We are social creatures and we need to connect with like minded people.
Reaching out has been one of the hardest lessons that I have had to learn thus far. You can’t always expect people to find you unless you make yourself available. I decided to join some forums, write people directly, and keep my mind open.
What I have found is people don’t mind having others reach out to them. I think one of the biggest reasons why people fail is because they stay in their own silo’s and do not seek others for help, advice, support, and even business. One of the biggest human fears is rejection, but when you overcome that fear you realize how receptive people truly are.
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Hey Alex - i know exactly how you feel and completely agree with you. Being with people around people is essential to prevent going crazy, and i’m glad you reached out to me