You can flaunt your Ph.D in professional busyness all you want in my face – it still won’t phase me one bit. The truth is that nowadays, people wear their workaholic tendencies as a badge of honor. " Look at me, look at me, I burry myself in my work and avoid coming face to face with myself. Where’s my award? " Give me a break now, and you might wanna give yourself one too.
Working isn’t solely a means to an end – it is more often than not a means of distracting ourselves from issues that we should be addressing, instead of continuously avoiding. It is beyond me that society has brainwashed people into stigmatizing those of us who don’t choose to embark on this working-myself-to-my-own-deathbed- fuckery. Maybe you are working 82 hours a week – and getting paid for it – but I’d rather work 82 hours a week working on my mental and emotional health and doing so without collecting one coin out of it.
I don’t care what it is you’re working toward – but driving your employees to the point where they are on the brink of suicide is completely inhuman, unacceptable and not normal. When I hear entrepreneurs such as Gary Vee saying stuff like "I’m constantly optimistic, never sad, - yadi yadi yada…" it makes me cringe. Suppressing emotions isn’t a sign of mental strength, and it’s certainly not something you should put upfront to a young audience watching you, as they will internalize your message and take it as the ultimate truth.
It baffles me that in this toxic hustle culture that gets promoted, mental and emotional health are rarely – if ever -part of the conversation. Yet they are the most important aspect of the human condition. You can have the best work ethic out there – kill it in the workplace- and still – if you overlook the importance of your own emotional health, you ought to become as toxic as the work culture you float in.
People are status conscious ; and being a workaholic is just another way to elevate their own false sense of prestige. What’s more is the fact that people have this ingrained perception that free time equates failure, and that being a busy ass bee is a sign of success. I don’t know what metrics you use to make such assumptions, but my conventional book of wisdom tells another story.
What can I tell you, free time just isn’t fashionable in the western world of today. Displaying your gazillion work commitments for the week is. “Work hard play hard” is the desirable motto. But are you really busy doing the right things? Or is your busyness rather a means of escaping some uncomfortable truths in your own life you don’t want to confront?
