Working our souls to the bone

Yesterday was Sunday, the day before Labor Day.  And for us here it was a day to relax and…work.  And work we did.  There were hours of chores, mostly Fall Cleaning.  And, in a way that would have surprised my grandparents, there were hours of work work.  Emails.  Going over notes.  Preparing to teach a grad school course.  And today, Labor Day itself, there’s more work.  Like, well, this blog I’m writing.  Not that it isn’t a labor of love!  But it’s still labor.  And, believe it or not, we’re also seeing a couple of patients.  Not that this is what I’d prefer.  Not that this is what’s they’d prefer.  But they too work very hard.  We meet when we can because with everyone working so hard, it’s hard to find time to meet. 

And that’s the point.  We’re all working really hard these days.  More than you might think.  This isn’t just self pity.  It’s backed up by some amazing facts.  Without boring you with numbers

…you and I are working harder and longer than we did 10 or 20 years ago. 

…we are working longer and harder than people in any developed country except South Korea (and they are working a lot less than they used to, while the amount we’re working is staying the same). 

…and we are working longer and harder than is good for us. 

It’s not just that our crazy busy, maxed out, stress filled, pressure packed, go-go, email-answering, inbox-emptying, chore-laden, soul-destroying work lives are taking a toll on our relationships, as we so amply showed in The Weekend Marriage, (complete with great realistic suggestions for how to keep your relationship alive in the face of all this.) 

But we’re suffering as individuals.  We just can’t take care of ourselves with all this work heaped on our heads. 

Here are some random examples:

– A young woman thinking of getting a divorce.  Her thinking is dominated by whether it’s staying or leaving that will add up to less work for her. 

– A middle-aged man needs an operation.  His entire thinking is dominated by when, if ever, he can take the time for the recovery he’ll need after the operation. 

– More and more children are being prepared to live their parents’ over-scheduled lives by being over-scheduled themselves.  Even play now is as highly programmed as work. 

– What is really behind yoga’s current popularity?  Well, one explanation is that in our lives where we have no free time, no time for ourselves, no time for anything spiritual, and no time for exercise, yoga gives us a four-in-one.  It’s scheduled like a meeting at work—so it seems familiar—and in that time there is exercise, something we call meditation, something that feels spiritual, and although there are other people you don’t have to interact with them so it feels like time for yourself. 

The point is that today we are so crammed, jammed, spammed, and flimflammed that we are all just about running on empty.  Except with a car—lucky car!—when it runs out of gas is just stops.  Which is what we should do.  But when we start running on empty we keep going in deficit mode: just like our country and our personal finances.  We tank up on coffee, momentum, and fear and keep going, but there is a grim, brittle, blue, ready-to-snap-at-a-moment’s-notice quality to our lives that just no good for us or for the people around us. 

Here’s what may be the only solution for those of us who’ve been zombified by work.  Think of yourself as another boss.  And by yourself, I mean the part of you that’s screaming, “Stop the world: I want to get off!”  The part of you that needs sleep, rest, peace, calm, fun, play, ease.  And you have to live as if getting these is a task just as important, as demanded, as anything else.  Obviously we can’t do anything but work any more.  Fine.  So think of taking care of yourself as another job. 

And then just do it. 

You have to.  Because you’re not going to collapse, have a nervous breakdown, and go to a nice sanitarium for a “rest.”  That would be nice, but it’s not an option for most of us.  Instead, you’re just going to keep going, a burnt-out basket case, not really alive but not dead either, one of the new zombies: the working American.

So go start on your new job and make taking care of yourself a real priority. 

Specifically: do one small but meaningful thing to take care of yourself every day.  Do one thing even more meaningful every week to take care of yourself.  And every month do one thing that’s kind of a big deal to take care of yourself, such as a “me” day off from work. 

For more suggestions, check out our award-winning book The Emotional Energy Factor

Posted: Monday, September 6th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
Category: Relationships, News & Notes, Emotional Energy, Decision Making, Uncategorized
Author: Mira and Charles
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