Or let’s look at it another way. If you could either go to work or enjoy your favourite hobby with a guarantee of no judgement or negative consequences on your decision, what would you choose? Because regardless of effusions, declarations and celebrity interviews, nobody loves their job that much. For most of us – if not all of us – work is something we do to pay for the stuff we need and the things we like.

This applies equally for rock stars and actors and celebrities. They might love being on stage and hanging out with the rich and famous, but their glamorous jobs are primarily aimed at feeding their habits and paying for the homes and cars where they chill after the party.

For example, Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton often get paid to attend parties, endorse events, and be beautiful. They even get paid to tweet. But for them to do that, they have to watch what they eat, work out a lot, give up their privacy, and be careful what they say to who. Case in point, despite being photographed every moment of every day, they can’t be seen in the same outfit twice. Some stars can’t even choose what to wear. It’s simply not allowed.

It might be easier for them because they love fashion, but it still can’t be fun to be a living mannequin 24-7. On shows about models, you hear them being reminded that they always have to look good and wear picture-perfect make-up, even on random trips to buy milk. The have glamorous lifestyles and super perks, but I’m sure if they had a choice between posing for photos at a shopping mall, and … oh … I don’t know … actual camera-free shopping, they’d pick the latter.

I’m a writer and I work at an ad agency. That means I get paid to write. Every. Single. Day of my work-life. I’m doing what I love. So … do I love my job? Sometimes. When I hear a spot I wrote on live radio, or walk past a billboard with my tagline on it, I feel pretty good. When I get my pay cheque and use it to buy something my baby wants, I’m ecstatic. When I wear my jeans, sneakers, and backpack to commute with people in suits and handbags, I’m pretty much dancing all the way to work.

But if I was asked to leave my desk right now to go home and sleep, or to sit in a hammock on a beach with a big book and a cold drink, I’d be there in a second, singing hallelujah all the way. For some people, it’s not about lazing around beneath the trees. Maybe you’re running official errands and someone gives you a chance to travel, or party, or play guitar, or dig in your farm, or dance the work-day away. Truth is there will always, always, always be stuff you’d rather be doing than work.

I’m an editor as well , which means my work includes reading other people’s manuscripts and documents. More of doing what I love. But it’s a little bit different when you’re being paid to professionally critique and correct another writer’s work. I’d much rather be reading a novel, or poetry, or my journal, or something that doesn’t need me to compile feedback for my client/boss.

Say you work as a beer/wine/coffee/chocolate/ice cream/hotel room/condom tester. You may well enjoy those particular activities. But when you have a boss waiting on a quality report, when you’re primarily looking for flaws rather than pleasures, when you’re focused on doing the job well rather than enjoying the experience, let’s just say at some point, you’ll wish you were some place else.

So you see, enjoying your fun-time isn’t about the kind of job you have, or how much you earn doing it. Like my ex says, if it was fun, it wouldn’t be called work. I’m sure Nadal, Usain Bolt, or even Mata would rather be shagging than training. It doesn’t mean they hate their million dollar jobs, or that they’re not doing what they love. It just means they’re human, and that no human would rather work than have fun.

Lately I’ve been feeling listless at the office, and I’ve been pretty hard on myself because I have the perfect job (for me), a wonderful salary, no dress code, and easy-going boss. I’ve found myself staring into space and asking, “What the hell is wrong with me?”

I know people who would kill for this job, yet here I am, staring at my open office reflection and wanting to be somewhere else. Mostly at home under my blanket with a good book and no pending briefs. Or on the beach, with a good book and no pending briefs. Or by a beautiful lakeside with a good book and no pending briefs.

Whether you’re a novelist, a porn star, a window cleaner, a rally driver, a chocolate taster, a DJ, or Miss Univerese, there will always be times when you’d rather not be – you know – working. And sometimes, those moments will be many and close together. Because work comes with responsibilities, supervision, expectations, requirements, the kind of thing that never happens when you’re clubbing, or biking, or leisure drinking, or lying at home in bed with nowhere you urgently need to be.

This gem of an article on Forbes has some interesting insights on why you shouldn’t be in a rush to, ‘do what you love’:

“I am a writer, but I love sex more than I love writing,” author Penelope Trunk observed a few years ago.  And I am not getting paid for sex…. But I don’t sit up at night thinking, should I do writing or sex? Because career decisions are not decisions about ‘what do I love most?’ Career decisions are about what kind of life do I want to set up for myself.”

Seth Godin once told the story of a gifted friend who took on a draining, grunt role at a record company because music was his bliss.  Godin wondered, rightly, if this friend could have served himself and society better if he worked as a schoolteacher during the day and spent his spare time pursuing his passion.

Your bliss can become hell once it becomes a job. Many a person has loved movies but hated making movies.  Living in Los Angeles, this applies to half my friends.  Even relatively successful writers and actors end up dreading the deadlines and burdens imposed by a career that looks less glamorous in close-up than it did in long-shot.

Even the most fabulous jobs in the world come with a boss and a to-do list. And yes, sometimes your boss is the media, your fans, your customers, or the paparazzi. I guess I’m realising the trouble isn’t the job. It’s the fact that I have a job.

And while earning an income is a trillion times better than being jobless and broke (and hungry and homeless and all that other bad stuff that comes with having no money), there will always be moments when I’d rather be in bed. Best to ride the wave, get my work done, and not give my boss any excuse to withdraw the very thing that pays for said bed.

♫ New Divide ♫ Linkin Park ♫

My mind-frame has had a theme for the past few months. You could say I’ve been pre-occupied with what people think and how their thoughts and opinions might (not) affect me. So somewhere in the midst of that, I bumped this article that says men hate women with short hair. Or rather, men hate short hair on women. The article was very well written and had me in stitches with gems like:

Women are quick to encourage other women to cut their hair by telling them how “cute” it is. While I’m no scientist, I’m convinced this is some deep, genetic programming at work, one that forces women—who compete with one another on a physical level on a daily basis—to encourage any behavior that might eliminate competitors in the dating pool.

The plaudits a Miley Cyrus, Rihanna, or Anne Hathaway receive when they cut their hair off—from people who have no business commenting on the attractiveness of women, like gay men—creates a copycat cycle that increases the trend geometrically.

I laughed especially hard about gay men not being qualified to comment on what is attractive in a woman. I’ve never thought of it like that. The assumption is gay men are fashionable and astute. It never occurred to me that a person who isn’t attracted to women might not exactly know what makes a woman attractive.

The funny thing is that I’ve been accused of the same thing. I’ve had several encounters with men where I pointed out a woman I thought was hot and they dismissed my suggestion completely. Other times, they go all ga-ga over some woman that I think looks perfectly ordinary.

Two things. First, yes, I’m that girl, the one guys talk to about the hotness of other girls. It’s like they don’t know I’m female! *frustrated sigh* Second, the women I think are attractive are petite – ideally five feet – and have hourglass figures. A-line figures are hot too – that’s the tiny waist and voluptuous hips – the so-called Rwandese figure. For me, curvy is hot, especially if the girl is flatter around the tummy region.

Now, let’s take the example of two hot girls. I’ve polled 15 different men, and they all agree that these girls are off the charts. They’re both petite. One is on the slimmer side – she has the body of a gymnast and loves to party. The other one is shy, a bit more chubby, but she loves to dance. I asked the guys why these girls were rated so highly and they said, “It’s the way she moves. Makes it look like she’d know what to in bed.” Oh. I see. I’d have put it down to their bubbly nature (and affinity for selfies) but hey, what do I know?

In town, I sometimes stare at women that I think are attractive. They have doe eyes and picture perfect faces, or tiny portable bodies with beautiful coca-cola curves. Or they might be a bit larger with hips that couldn’t possibly lie. Some have perfectly rounded breasts that don’t jiggle when they walk – lord knows how. I keep wanting to stop them and ask them where they buy their bras!   

I look at them and think wow, I wish I looked more like that. Then as an experiment, I look around to see how many men are staring at these visions of beauty. And every single time I do this experiment, there is no man drooling over my picture-perfect girl. Not one! Are they all blind? At some point, I had to admit that maybe what I think is attractive in a woman isn’t necessarily the same thing men admire.

I pointed this out to a good male friend, and he sneered and said, “But you girls make the rules. You decide which girl is hot and we all agree. You all envy the prettiest girl in your group and act with deference or spite towards her – sometimes both. So we follow your cues and all hit on her.” Yeah, not according to my experiment you don’t.

Anyway, back to the matter of short hair. For a long time, it was assumed that I was making a statement by wearing purple dreadlocks. I wasn’t by the way, I just like purple and the idea of never combing my hair. Now that I have a short afro (which I unfortunately have to comb) it’s once again assumed that I’m either making a statement or following a fad. Again, it was an accidental hairdo, and I’m keeping until I decide what to do next.

The article about girls with short hair being damaged assumes two things [which the writer seems to genuinely believe]. (a) Men love long hair on women, period. (b) Women with short hair have some inherent problem, which is what prompted them to cut their hair. It doesn’t even cross his mind that a girl might just like the short-haired look.

A feminist might argue from the point of, “I’m not made for your pleasure. My hair isn’t intended to make you happy. It’s on my head after all.” A landmark forum leader took the opposite view. “You choose what you wear, but it’s your partner that has to look at you all day. You pass a mirror maybe three or four times a day. The rest of the time, it’s them that have to watch you. So maybe they should have a say in how you look.” By extension, I suppose society should have a hand in dictating fashion, yes?

The writer argues from the basic angle that men dislike short hair and that girls with short hair get hit on less. I don’t fully agree with that, because I’m getting lots more compliments since I went afro. Of course that might be because my previous hairdo involved purple dreadlocks, but not all the compliments are from guys that know me, so it’s not necessarily a before-after kind of thing. Plus, natural afros are currently in vogue in this part of the world, so maybe we’ve taught the guys that TWAs (teeny weeny afros – and yes, I do burst into helpless giggles every time I hear that abbreviation) are attractive. Oh yeah, there’s also this …

Granted a lot of older women wear their hair short(er than they did in their youth), even in the west. And I have my doubts that these First Ladies are part of the Shea Butter Gang. They probably just wash and comb (with a bean comb muhahaha) without all the 69 products, tools, accessories and processes the average modern-day-naturalista uses. Currently, my hair looks a lot like theirs *pointing up there* … except it takes half an hour daily to get that way. Which for me is 30 minutes too long, because I previously had dreads and hadn’t combed my hair in 15 years. Le sigh.

I don’t know about guys liking my new look. The guys at work say it’s gorgeous, but a lot of women in our industry are wearing their hair this way, so either the guys have acclimatised  or we’ve trained them really well, muhahahaha. My father and brothers just say I look different. They refuse to commit on whether different is good or bad … but then they didn’t like my previous hairdo either so that’s nothing new.

Strangers in the street seem to be staring more, which could be as much a sign of pleasure as distaste. I’ve received some open compliments from strange men – emphasis on the strange – but that might be because short afros are less intimidating than purple dreads. Overall, I think the afro has been received positively. Still…

 Just because you have enough left-over attractiveness to remain bangable after cutting off your hair doesn’t mean you wouldn’t look better with it back on.

Le ouch!

Speaking for myself, the article didn’t offend me so much as amuse me, and it still does. It did make me think about what men find attractive, and how much women hurt themselves trying to be hotter when all we’re doing is enhancing features that men might not even notice. And it makes me wonder – what’s more important – being attractive to guys, or being attractive to yourself? Does it matter if a girl walks around feeling absolutely beautiful even if men disagree so much that not a single man is hitting in her? ION…

♫ All of me ♫ John Legend ♫

There’s an episode of 7th Heaven where Matt has a bit of an … episode … about girlfriends past. It happens on Valentines’ Day or something. He’s sitting there thinking about why he’s alone, so he ends up visiting all his exes to find out exactly why he broke up with them. I do that sometimes. I look back at the guys in my life and try to analyse what went wrong.

Because I’m such an over-thinker, I generally have clear, distinctive answers to my musings. There’s only one ex I would willingly go back to, and sometimes I still wonder why he left. Plus, we’re still on good terms, so every once in a while we have a nice, friendly chat.

He’s seeing someone else now, and I’m genuinely happy for them. She’s the complete opposite of me, the kind of girl I sometimes want to be. Looking at her, I see why he left me. She’s everything I never was, everything I tried to be for him. He used to say I moulded myself into him, changed myself to suit him.

You see, he had a very clear idea of what his dream girl was like, and when he first asked me out, he said he was surprised that he had fallen for me at all. I was so not dream-girl material. I spent the entire relationship worrying that he would find the girl of his dreams and that I could never really make him happy. I weaved between trying to be her and berating myself for not quite making it.

In the end, he picked someone who could be that kind of girl effortlessly, even though we’d been apart for two years before he met her. Of course she has flaws (and of course I see those flaws quite clearly). But he loves her good points more.

Sometimes I wonder if he ever thinks of me, or misses me, if there are traits in me that he wishes she possessed. After all, we had stuff in common that she doesn’t get. She’s not much of a reader, for example. I first met him in a virtual library, and she doesn’t seem to enjoy books very much.

I asked him about it once. I was re-reading the book he bought me on my birthday, and asked him what he was reading at the time. He said he doesn’t read much these days. His girl prefers movies, so they have season tickets to their equivalent of IMAX. I wondered (inside my head) if he missed reading, and whether – by extension – he missed me. But I respect his new relationship, so I’d never ever ask that question out loud.

It made me wonder about cheating. There will always be a certain quality, memory, hobby you share with your ex that your current doesn’t quite understand. Or maybe you meet someone new that shares the one hobby your current partner detests. If you were to indulge that particular longing, it could be very easy to have that passion for  minute, or an hour, or a night. I guess you just have to choose not to indulge it.

So I look at this ex now, at the person he becomes when he’s with her, a person I never saw when we were together. I wonder if that person was inside him all along, itching to be let out, or whether he has changed to suit her just like I changed to suit him. I wonder if being with me restricted him from ‘being himself’ or whether I was so caught up in my vision of him that I simply didn’t notice those things about him.

I wonder if I could love the person that he is now, the person he has become because of her, and whether this new person could ever love a girl like me. Probably not, or he would still be with me. That’s why people should never play ‘what if’. It’s a pointless, hurtful, extremely dangerous game. Also, Happy-Month-After-Valentines-Day.

♫ Broken Wings ♫ Alter Bridge ♫