What I Learned From a Stroke at 26: Make Time to Untangle
What I Learned From a Stroke at 26: Make Time to Untangle
I've been thinking about this lately and I've concluded that a big driver of overwork is the misguided quest for fulfillment.
Not really fulfillment like we normally call it, I'd say more like acceptance.
Perhaps many of us are seeking love and acceptance from bosses and coworkers, and overworking ourselves to obtain it.
I believe that building your identity on anything that isn't yours is stressful. Building your ego on your job performance or on the positive feedback you get from coworkers isn't healthy.
It's like emotional sharecropping. You are building your ego on someone else's land.
People need to remember that work is the place where they have "human resource" departments, where they will make cut and dried decisions on who to retain and who to lay off the moment they want to adjust a budget.
That is absolutely terrifying! I've been guilty of overworking both as my own employer and under other employers. The human body is not made for sitting at a chair in front of a pc for 70 hours a week with so many deadlines you are always frantic. It's not healthy! I think it's worth taking a less stressful job and have more free time than take a high-stress but high paying job.
As my own employer I have the luxury of enjoying a day off when I want it. I have commitments to some degree, but if I want to sleep in or work extra late I have that flexibility. I make a lot less than my corporate job I had before, but I have enough to live off of. And that's better than so much stress.