Workaholism has been getting a bad rap lately. Studies and newspaper headlines say that too many Canadians are working too hard and apparently we’ve been telling researchers in great numbers that we don’t like it. And yet we keep on slugging away, which suggests to me that we don’t mind it as much as we like to say.
When you’re a kid, of course, playing is your full-time job and the type of activity adults like to describe as “work” is not too appealing. A certain number of people go on playing their whole lives and I envy them in many ways. Life is all just one big day off.
But I think a lot of us come to a point in our lives where we start longing for a little meaning and purpose and staying out all night bar-hopping or lying on a beach under a hot sun all day just doesn’t cut it. Not to mention the fact that carousing and sun-tanning don’t pay the hills as well as holding down a job.
Workaholics, it has been said, are very insecure people who are driving themselves to early graves for a little bit of acceptance by others. In other words, we work hard because we’re searching for love.
Other workaholics are simply running away burying themselves in endless tasks to avoid dealing with the real problems in their lives, whether it be discord at home or simple loneliness. I am sure there is some validity in every theory put forward but I have also talked to a lot of people over the years who maybe work a bit more than they should because – they like it!
I will admit that hard work is an acquired taste but it can get to be an enjoyable habit after a while, providing the labour falls within a person’s field of interest. The goal, to me, seems to be accomplishment. You work hard and something changes. You’ve produced something, created something that didn’t exist before. Something has been achieved.
I don’t usually quote religious terms but it’s been said we were made in the image and likeness of God. And, as God was the Creator, I think we are most fully alive when we, too, are creating, whether it be a poem, a board fence, a work of art, or a new relationship. We were meant to create, to take part in the ongoing process of Creation.
So, for me, lying around on hot sand for 10 hours a day doesn’t get a lot created, except, perhaps, for a very painful sunburn. Therefore, if I have to choose between idleness and work, I’ll choose the latter most of the time. In fact, working hard at a job or a project of some kind seems to be the surest way to ward off worry, self-doubt, guilt and depression. A lot of problems that can’t be solved on the psychiatrist’s couch, mysteriously, can often be chased away by grabbing the handle of a shovel or a hammer and starting to dig or pound away.
I guess the point that people are trying to make is that too much work is not a good thing but who doesn’t know that? Water’s a great item but if you drink 30 big glasses of it in one sitting – you’ll die.
I must admit I do get a twinge of envy when I see some sunglassed couple go whizzin’ by in a beautiful little sportscar with the top down and the tunes blaring while I’m out trying to move a big rock from one flower bed to another. But I’ve been in the sports car with the sunglasses and I’ve gotta tell you, from my perspective, driving around can get awfully boring after a while.
So, whoever wrote, “Take this job and shove it!” obviously lived a different life than I have. Throughout my whole life, work has been the one constant that has never failed to keep me going. There is nothing worse, in my mind, than waking up in the morning with nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no long list of tasks awaiting me.
All hail workaholism!
©2007 Jim Hagarty
