All Work and No Play: The Dangers of an Unbalanced Life
In the last few years, we have reached a work culture where we value personal life as much, if not more than our work life. For as long as I can remember, work and one’s identity associated with work were sometimes all that mattered.
In the last few years, we have reached a work culture where we value personal life as much, if not more than our work life.
For as long as I can remember, work and one’s identity associated with work were sometimes all that mattered.
I started out valuing personal time more than work. And then, at one point, when I changed career paths and had a moment of absolute uncertainty about myself, I opened the door allowing work to take over me. I became the only thing I promised I would never be: a workaholic. I felt I needed to prove myself, and I did. But at a personal cost to myself.
At the end? The company I worked for at the time rewarded me with more work since they considered me reliable.
It took years and a job change to regain my lost and valued work balance. Even then, it is hard to hold onto. I can sometimes feel myself losing grip.
Going above and beyond is often praised as the only way to succeed. Yet, it often comes at a personal cost. Be it mental, physical, or emotional. At a certain point, we all burn out. The hope is that we can somehow regain the energy we lost. Or find balance after the burnout.
I didn’t get a break until I could leave a toxic work environment for a better one. Yet I still felt hungover from all the craziness I had to put up with to stay afloat at my previous work.
At my previous job, there were many well-meaning people. But the company’s work culture mechanisms were already in place. The best intentions did not always prevent worse actions.
Burnout is more robust now than ever.
It’s not burnout alone from work. Every day we read or are notified of things that give us pause. Things that make us worry. Even outside of work, we never feel like we can relax. We need to take action. Use our off time to join some cause to feel like we are contributing. Or time to breathe.
We need more opportunities to reduce the need to overachieve to succeed. Why do we have to earn the right to retire? We deserve more opportunities to live in a world where we all get a chance at a break now and again.
And if you think this way leads to laziness, you have never worked so hard and are still not rewarded and burned out. You are still sacrificing what you were supposed to have from working this hard.
Many have been convinced we must work to the bone to keep the world turning. This is a lie. The world will keep turning regardless of what we do. The sun will rise and set as it will until the end. It will rain whether we want it to or not.
Most of my life was work. Working through school so I could get that big paying job. The big-paying jobs want me to work almost three hundred fifty-five days of the year (not including holidays). I also need to unofficially ensure I’m available for an emergency, even on PTO.
This is unacceptable.
This is not the American dream. This is the American nightmare.
We are at a new crossroads on the road of American work culture. We can now turn the tide back on many of the rights we have been losing through the years. Even now, only a few CEOs keep their pockets full of cash. Even when they fail, they have golden parachutes.
Many of us will always have more wealth than them. And that is not our fault. We have a right to be treated as human beings, not as another cog in a giant oily machine. We are much more than that.
It’s time to continue fighting for our rights. We have everything to lose if we don’t.
All work and no play make us all dull.